Wesley Matthews Out for Season

One of the Portland Trailblazers’ worst nightmares came true Thursday night, as starting shooting guard Wesley Matthews exited the game with what ended up being a season ending injury.

In the second half of the Blazers’ blowout win against the Dallas Mavericks, Matthews hit the deck holding his left ankle/Achilles region, and a later MRI confirmed the injury to be a torn left Achilles. The team later confirmed that the injury would keep Matthews out of play for the rest of the season.

VIDEO: Wesley Matthews tears his Achilles

Before going down with the injury, Matthews had been having one of the best seasons of his young career for a resurgent Blazers squad.

Going undrafted in 2009, Matthews spent his rookie year with the Utah Jazz before heading to Portland. Over the past five seasons with the Blazers, Matthews has averaged about 15 points per game, and consistently been one of the best three-point shooters in the league. While Matthews’ per-game numbers had been down slightly this year, this decrease can be attributed to more of the offense being run through All-Stars Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge, as Matthews has shown no dropoff in his efficiency of production.

This injury will be a huge blow to Portland, which had been poised to make a deep run into the playoffs, despite competing against a loaded Western Conference. Now, however, postseason success seems like a much more difficult proposition.

Sitting at 41-19, good enough for first in the Northwest division, Portland will need fellow guards Nicolas Batum and Damian Lillard to step up their production to cover for Matthews’ injury. Batum in particular has struggled this season, and Lillard has been shooting uncharacteristically poorly over the past few games, but both of those trends will need to end for the Blazers to maintain their standing in the West.

Backup wing Arron Afflalo will also likely see an increase in minutes, as he is the logical choice to replace Matthews in the starting lineup. Acquired at the trade deadline for little used backups Will Barton, Thomas Robinson, and Victor Claver, Afflalo has had a good showing over his initial few games as a Blazer, and will need to maintain that production as Portland marches towards the postseason.

Losing Matthews is undeniably a huge loss for the Blazers. His lockdown defense and knockdown shooting will be sorely missed, but if the Portland franchise knows anything, it’s how to recover from debilitating injuries to star players.

Once again, Rip City will be required to pull together and push through, as they have done countless times before.