Wesley Matthews can feel his toes again

Matthews' basketball rags-to-riches story is well known by now. Undrafted out of Marquette, he caught on with the Utah Jazz, impressing legendary coach Jerry Sloan with this toughness and two-way play, and parlayed a strong rookie season into a five-year, front-loaded, full mid-level contract with the Portland Trail Blazers during the summer of 2010. On the day he was introduced to the media in Portland, Matthews promised that the contract wouldn't change him or impact his non-stop work ethic.

By all accounts he has lived up to that pledge, playing in all 82 games in his first season in Portland. He stepped into a starting role when Portland's All-Star guard Brandon Roy dealt with recurring knee issues, averaging 15.9 points and 3.1 rebounds per game. But one thing did get in the way: a painful ankle injury, caused by a few too many bad sprains, that he opted to play through rather than treat during the season.

Once summer hit, Matthews' first stop was to a specialist, who recommended a regimen of Platelet Rich Plasma therapy and instructed that he wear a protective boot around the clock to ensure that both his ankle and foot would heal properly.

"I had the PRP injection maybe a few days after the season ended," Matthews said on Monday after scoring 19 points, grabbing six rebounds and dishing four assists on 7-for-13 shooting in his Impact debut. "I was in a boot for six weeks. Stayed in the boot at all times, only thing I didn't do was shower with it. After six weeks, I started slowly working on walking, just basic stuff. When you mess up your ankle, you want to get all the mobility right. Get the basics down, everything. It was a long process. it was close to two months trying to get back before I could really do anything."

For Matthews, whose game is predicated on non-stop defensive energy and hustle, two months without movement is akin to torture. But was the mandatory rest worth it?

"It's like night and day," Matthews said of how his ankle feels now compared to how it felt during Portland's first round playoff series loss to the eventual NBA champion Dallas Mavericks. "I can feel my toes now. I didn't have feeling in my toes during the last month and a half of the season."

"The foot is feeling good," Matthews said. "Still healing, still getting better. It's getting stronger. I'm doing more and more and I'm in a lot less pain. I still feel it. I still know that it's not 100 percent there, but it's getting there."