On Wednesday night, Bennedict Mathurin and the Los Angeles Clippers defeated the Indiana Pacers in his first game against his former team. Indiana traded Mathurin as part of the Ivica Zubac trade, and it didn't take long for him to remind them just how special he is.
In the win, Mathurin scored 23 points on 8-for-11 shooting off the bench. He also recorded eight rebounds, four assists, one steal, and a block in 22 minutes. This was his most efficient shooting game of the season, and he played a big part in the Clippers' win.
After the game, head coach Rick Carlisle praised his former player and reminded everybody just how talented of a scorer he is.
"He's an NBA scorer. How many times do I need to say it? He came out of the womb with 20 points. That's a compliment. That's how easily he scores. They've got another Kawhi Leonard-type scorer. It's a great 1-2 punch for them,"Â Carlisle said about Mathurin.
Bennedict Mathurin has always been a great scorer
Mathurin certainly has his flaws, but his scoring is not one of them.
The Arizona alum is always a threat with the ball in his hands. He can score at all three levels in every single way, and he is incredibly difficult to stop when he gets hot (which the Pacers saw firsthand for the first time on Wednesday).
This season, Mathurin is averaging 18.1 points while shooting 43.2% from the field and 34% from deep in 37 games with the Pacers and Clippers. He can be very streaky, and his inconsistency is likely a big reason Indiana was fine with moving on from him this season, but he is clearly an asset.
When he was with the Pacers, Mathurin was able to take a lot of pressure off guys like Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam because of his incredible ability to create his own shot and get buckets. Now that he's not on the team anymore, they need to figure out how to replace him. Because that won't be an easy task.
It's been a bit of an up-and-down start to his Clippers tenure, but the good far outweighs the bad for Mathurin. His three-ball hasn't fallen yet (he is shooting 6-for-32, or 18.8%, from beyond the arc as a Clipper), but he already has four games of 20 or more points, all off the bench, and he had one of the best games of his career on Wednesday night.
Everybody in Indiana knew that Mathurin had talent. It was just his fit and long-term role with the team that were questionable. I'd guess that, in a year or two, the Pacers and Clippers will both be happy with the trade they made. But even so, the Pacers already got a firsthand reminder about just how dominant the 23-year-old can be when he's feeling it.