Embodiments of a User Equipment (UE), generation Node-B (gNB) and methods of communication are generally described herein. A radio frame may be configured for time-division duplexing (TDD) operation, and may comprise: one or more downlink subframes, one or more uplink subframes, and a special subframe that occurs immediately after one of the downlink subframes and immediately before one of the uplink subframes. The UE may receive a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) sent at least partly in the special subframe. The UE may, if a number of repetitions of the NPDSCH is greater than one, decode the NPDSCH based on a de-puncture operation for the special subframe. The UE may, if the number of repetitions of the NPDSCH is equal to one, decode the NPDSCH based on a rate match operation for the special subframe.