The Portland Trail Blazers blew out the visiting Dallas Mavericks 94-75 Thursday night, but lost guard Wesley Matthews for the remainder of the season.
Matthews went down in the third quarter on a cut towards the hoop, tearing his Achilles tendon in the process.
MRI confirms Portland G Wesley Matthews sustained a ruptured left Achilles' tendon. He is out for the season.
— Trail Blazers PR (@TrailBlazersPR) March 6, 2015
“What’s the normal timetable like eight months… I’ll try to be back in five.” — @wessywes2
Interview » http://t.co/L5gO2xcGHU
— Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) March 6, 2015
A devastated Wes tried to put on a brave face while talking to the media, vowing to return to action as soon as possible.
From the team website:
“I’m frustrated man, I’m frustrated,” said a dejected Matthews. “You say everything happens for a reason and again, I was up in that tube I was just thinking: What was this reason? What was it? I can’t find it right now. But it’s bigger than me and this team has got something special still. I believe in that, I feel that they do too. We’ll all weather this. I’ll do what I need to do, this team will do what this team needs to do.”
“I make that same cut hundreds of thousands of times in my life,” said Matthews. “I felt the initial pop and I think you guys could probably tell on the replay, I looked back. You heard it feels like someone’s kicked you. I was praying. I was praying that someone was back there. No one was back there.”
“It definitely doesn’t hurt to have those guys but you can’t replace who he is and what he’s meant to this organization,” said LaMarcus Aldridge. “With those guys, they’re going to help us, but they can’t be him.” […] “You can’t make up for Wes Matthews,” said Damian Lillard, “but we can have guys, multiple guys, come in and do things to still help the team play at a high level. Now the trade that we made becomes even an better trade because Arron has been a starting two guard in the league, has it on both ends of the floor just like Wes does. But now CJ and Allen, Alonzo going to have to come in and be ready to fill that hole.”
