The Portland Trail Blazers have found themselves in big trouble after the season-ending injury Wesley Matthews suffered on Thursday. This loss will certainly be a tough one to overcome, as the guard has been a very important player for Portland throughout the 2014/15 campaign. He averaged 16.2 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game until now, but it’s not the stats that the Blazers will miss the most – it’s the personality of Matthews and his leadership on and off the court.
It will be extremely hard for Portland to overcome his absence, but they should be happy that Arron Afflalo was signed on the trade deadline. Afflalo is a player with skills similar to Matthews’, but nevertheless the former Nuggets guard isn’t that good. The difference between the two guys is that Wes was the heart and soul of the Blazers – he was the one to bring a positive attitude to the team, he was the one that worked the hardest and he made the team what it really is.
Even though the title hopes for the Blazers seem very faded right now, they still shouldn’t be counted out. It may sound very cliché, but in professional sports it happens very often that when one player goes down with an injury, the whole team starts playing a bit harder for him. We can just hope that the Portland roster will give an extra effort for their teammate.
The Portland Trail Blazers are still in third position in the Western Conference, but it won’t be much of a surprise if we see them go down in the standings. LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard will have to work even harder in order to keep the teams hopes of at least reaching the West’s Finals. However, seeing Matthews go down like this and losing him for the remainder of the season is a huge blow for the squad on both ends of the floor. In my opinion, the Blazers won’t be the same team from this moment on, and they will quickly get eliminated from the playoffs.
NBA News: How much will the Portland Trail Blazers miss Wesley Mathews?
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