Timberwolves’ Naz Reid has broken wrist

Just as the Minnesota Timberwolves have heated up in the homestretch of the regular season, one of their key players has suffered a significant injury.

A source confirmed to KSTP Sports Friday morning that forward/center Naz Reid has a broken left wrist. He suffered the injury in the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s loss at Phoenix.

The team later confirmed the news, saying an MRI showed a left scaphoid fracture that will sideline Reid “indefinitely.”

It’s a tough blow to the Timberwolves, who had won four games in a row before the Suns game.

Reid has been a key part of the team’s final push, when every game has been crucial for playoff seeding purposes in the tightly packed Western Conference.

Overall, Reid has averaged 11.5 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 0.8 blocks per game this season while shooting 34.6% on threes and 65.3% from two-point range. More recently, he’s scored in double figures in each of the past eight games, including three games with more than 20 points.

The talented big man is also in the final year of his contract, meaning it’s possible he’s already played his final game in a Timberwolves uniform if the team doesn’t re-sign him this summer and his wrist injury sidelines him for the rest of the season.

Minnesota entered Friday with just five games left in the regular season and a record of 39-38, which slotted them as the eighth seed in the conference and in the play-in tournament. However, they’re still just one game back of sixth-seeded Golden State and two back of the fifth-seeded Clippers while also being up by just half a game on the ninth-seeded Lakers and one game on 10th-seeded Oklahoma City.

The team is back in action Friday night when the Lakers come to town for a matchup that will have huge implications on the team’s seeding for the playoffs.