PostSportsPlus: The takeaways from this week’s Ben Simmons surge and the Nets puzzle it reintroduces
“I think he did a good job of just talking up, commanding the offense, commanding the team on the defensive side of the ball,” Durant continued. “He was incredible, so we’re going to keep building on that. … He controlled the game and was able to get us back into it.”NBAE via Getty Images
“It’s a little bit of everything,” he said. “People seem like I had a sprained ankle. I had back surgery. That’s not easy to come back from. So I take it day by day. I stay locked in and focused, and continue to build myself, my body and my game.”— a microdiscectomy in May to fix a herniated L-4 disk — came after Simmons missed all of last season.
“It just gives us all confidence,” Durant said. “Look how many wide-open shots we got: Royce [O’Neale] got a lot of wide-open 3s, Joe [Harris] started getting some 3s, Yuta [Watanabe] got some 3s, Seth [Curry] got some shots. Ben just getting downhill making plays, and you combine that with Royce’s 11 assists, myself who can create a little bit off the dribble, just gives us more weapons out there on the floor.
And all of that paled in comparison to his woes at the free-throw line. Simmons — whose hesitancy to shoot free throws helped make him a pariah in Philadelphia — was shooting just 46.7 percent from the charity stripe, and hadn’t made a foul shot since Oct. 29, the night of the aforementioned team meeting.
Simmons may have needed them more. The Nets may have said they were confident in him, but his own self-assurance has been flagging.in pivotal moments of the 76ers’ second-round playoff ouster by the Hawks in 2021, presumably for fear of being fouled. If he had any fear Thursday, he fought through it and controlled his nerves. Whether or not he turned a corner, it felt encouraging.
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