SACRAMENTO - This is a big road trip for Wesley Matthews and not just because the second night of back-to-back games is in Portland, where he played the last five seasons.
The shooting guard has done what modern science thought was impossible and instilled a defensive attitude into the Mavericks.
What Matthews hasn’t done is shoot the ball up to his standards, and that bothers him. It’s something he’d love to change on this trip.
But even if it doesn’t, he and coach Rick Carlisle are working on other ways to get Matthews involved offensively until his shooting eye gets dialed in.
Case in point: when Matthews got the ball early in the second half against Denver on Saturday, he gave a brief fake and stutter step that got defender Randy Foye out of position, then zipped by him for an easy layup.
That’s the sort of play that Matthews has to take advantage of while his long ball is going in at only a 31.6-percent clip.
“I think right now, it’s tough because I’m missing so many threes that I normally knock down that I get in the habit of hunting them,” Matthews said. “And then I forget every other part of my game.
“Everybody in the arena probably thought I was going to raise up and let it go on that play. So I just had to have the confidence to show the ball and go and attack and try to get a downhill mentality.”
The idea is to get his offense going in other ways, then let the 3-point shot come to him rather than trying to force it.
Shooters always have a shooting mentality. The next one is always going in. But there’s more than one way to get out of a slump than just shooting one’s way out of it.
“He’s getting a lot of good shots, shots he’s normally going to make,” point guard Deron Williams said. “I think he’s started to attack the basket a little more and you know, once you see the ball go in, whether it’s free throws or layups, then your three starts going in. I’m not worried about that because I know he can shoot the basketball.”
Matthews doesn’t attribute the early season shooting slump to anything related to his Achilles injury suffered in March. While it’s natural for Matthews to have to fight through heavy-legged periods with his surgically repaired left Achilles, it hasn’t had a major impact on his defense and his quickness hasn’t seemed to be diminished.
Carlisle said Sunday that the game plan is to get Matthews on track offensively in other manners apart from the 3-ball.
“Wes is a really good offensive player,” Carlisle said. “He’s a great 3-point shooter, but that’s not all he is. He can drive. He can post up. He can make plays off the dribble better than people think.
“We’ve got to utilize him in some different ways and take advantage of his abilities. We’re starting to look at other situations that don’t just involve transition threes and plays where he ends up with the ball late in the clock and has to cast one up.”
Matthews is going to be relied upon heavily by the Mavericks. That’s a fact of life when you sign a four-year, $70-million contract.
And it’s not something he wants to hide from. Matthews wants to be the focal point defensively and also knows he has to be an offensive force for the Mavericks to make any noise this season.
There will come a time when his outside shot seems like it never misses.
But until that time, he’ll find other ways to make sure he’s impacting the game at both ends of the floor.