CAMDEN, N.J. — When one looks at Philadelphia 76ers wing player Matisse Thybulle’s career thus far, one sees the huge impact he has had on the defensive end. In three seasons in the league, he has already appeared on an All-Defensive Team twice in recognition of the way he disrupts the opposition’s game plan.
However, the offensive end has been a totally different story.
Thybulle has struggled to find a rhythm on that end of the floor. He is a career 32.4% shooter from deep, and he has been a virtual non-factor on offense. He shot 28.6% from deep in the 2022 playoffs though he was not able to play in Toronto during the first-round series due to Canada’s vaccination rules.
After the season, Thybulle vowed he would become an offensive asset. It was recently revealed he worked with Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard. The defensive standout from Washington opened up on his workouts at media day on Monday.
“A lot of it was shooting, shooting related,” Thybulle revealed. “It’s hard to create defensive situations in the offseason. It’s just you and a rebounder, but doing what I could conceptually, film-wise on the defensive ends, but mostly just working on myself offensively with ball-handling in the open court or corner 3s and just catch and shoot and doing things off the move.”
The corner 3s are going to be especially important for Thybulle. The Sixers need him to knock down those open looks because that corner 3 will be available regularly when playing next to James Harden.
Another big factor for Thybulle is he had a full offseason to work on his game for the first time in his career.
“I didn’t really have a chance to work on myself the last two offseasons,” Thybulle explained. “The first one was COVID and there were no gyms. The second one, I was working to win a medal at the Olympics with Australia. So there wasn’t a lot of space for me to just work on Matisse. So this is my first chance to have a whole offseason, a real traditional offseason, and dedicated solely to improving myself.”
It remains to be seen if the work Thybulle put in on the offensive end will help the team and himself, but it’s obvious he is taking the work seriously. It is equally obvious that Philadelphia needs him to take that next step on offense.
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