Naz Reid hits crucial shots as Timberwolves roll against Lakers in fourth quarter to win Game 4

The Timberwolves trailed by two points Sunday with 3½ minutes remaining when coach Chris Finch called a timeout.

During the stoppage, Finch turned to a familiar fourth-quarter hero at Target Center: Naz Reid.

“You gotta get [Reid] activated sometimes,” Finch said. “We went to him a couple of times in a row. That’s what you gotta do.”

The sixth-year center carried a few extra tricks up his sleeve in the fourth quarter of the Wolves’ 116-113 victory over the Lakers at Target Center. The Wolves outscored Los Angeles 32-19 in that final quarter.

Finch said Reid hunted for shots earlier in the game but had settled into a rhythm at a crucial juncture. Once the timeout struck, Finch saw an opening for a top-of-the-floor three-pointer. It was a play drawn up specifically for Reid.

“The ATO [after timeout] was pretty easy,” Finch said. “I knew where I was going to go with it, and he delivered.”

Nine seconds after he checked back into the game, Reid buried his second three-pointer of the day, repaying his coach’s crunch-time faith in full with a catch-and-shoot conversion off a Julius Randle feed.

“He made the right call, and I did what I had to vouch for his call,” Reid said. “I put the work in day in and day out to be in situations like that.”

Reid finished with 12 points as the Wolves took a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven first-round playoff series, with Game 5 on Wednesday night in Los Angeles. The 25-year-old has reached double figures in all three of the Wolves’ victories over the Lakers this series, including a 23-point display in Game 1.

The NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year Award winner last season, Reid has made all six of the fourth-quarter three-pointers he has tried in the series’ opening four games. That figure includes two triples Sunday in the final five minutes.

“Naz comes in, not playing much in the second half, and he makes big shots for us,” Randle said. “Everybody can chip in to scoring.”

Reid added four rebounds and two assists while producing a game-high plus-9 plus/minus mark in his 20 minutes of action.

“He’s been a really good defender at times,” Finch said. “Last year, he was really good. This year, he hasn’t always had it. [Today], and in these playoffs, he knows that’s what we need him to do.

“He did a great job of just sitting down and guarding and standing up those drives.”

As he commended Reid’s late-stage heroics, Finch quipped that he welcomed him to show up for the opening three quarters next time out.

But on a strange afternoon in which the Lakers didn’t make one second-half substitution, an off-the-bench jolt from Reid helped decide a matchup of razor-thin margins.

“I’m trying to impact the game in any way, shape or form,” Reid said. “Even if I’m not shooting good throughout the game, just impacting the game in other categories. I mean, rebounding and steals, defending, screening, whatever the case may be. Just impacting the game in a positive direction.