“I may be a rookie, but I’m not a rookie”
After an eye-popping 29 field goal attempt-game against the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, Filipino-Canadian Matthew Wright proved 10 days later that he is more than just a gunslinger, as he almost picked-up his first-ever triple-double in the big league.
“I may be a rookie, but I’m not a rookie. I don’t carry myself like a rookie and I have a lot of basketball experience, so I try to bring that to our team and to our game, to be a vet, a vocal leader,” the Gilas Cadet said after Phoenix’s rout of NLEX, 102-91.
“I’m not the most vocal guy, but I try to lead by example.”
Wright flirted with a triple-double in Phoenix’s fifth win of the season, tallying 12 points, a career-high tying 12 rebounds, and a career-high nine assists. For him, he made a conscious effort to involve his teammates this time around to get them heated up for the toughest stretch of the conference.
“Yeah, especially the older guys, who take a little bit longer to get going. They’re not as young and as spry as me, Simon [Enciso], and Norbert [Torres], but they need little bit of a nudge here and there, so I made a point of emphasis to get guys like JC [Intal], get Willy [Wilson] back – I’m glad that he finally had a good game from recovering from his sickness, and Cyrus [Baguio] showed signs of old Skyrus, and Chico [Lanete] as well was a big lift for us,” the 6-foot-4 swingman said.
And this effort by the first-year Fuel Master was a huge lift for Phoenix, as five players finished in double-figures during the game. Moreover, they shot an efficient 45 percent from the field, 41 percent from distance.
His mentor-coach Ariel Vanguardia, however, made sure to point out to Wright that he had almost picked-up a triple-double because of another department: turnovers. Wright had nine turnovers in the game, 5.7 turnovers above his norms.
“I knew about the turnovers. Coach [Ariel Vanguardia] is very hard on me. Whatever the opposite of a silver lining, he’ll tell me what I did bad, so he told me about the turnovers, so I tried to make up for it,” he admitted.
“I can’t take them back, so the only thing I can do is to make up for it with steals, blocks, rebounds, whatever.”
However, Wright shared that he had wanted to get that triple-double. The last time he achieved that feat was back in his collegiate days with Division I team St. Bonaventure Bonnies.
“Subconsciously, yeah. It would’ve been my second career triple-double. I had one back in college, so that’s a feat that you always want to try to get, but mostly I was just trying to make the right play,” he shared.
But more important for him is that they have been able to get back to the win column and are in the thick of things in the wild playoff race.
