Even the Nets had no idea what they were going to get from Ben Simmons after being sidelined for nearly three months.
But what about his early return on his return?
Pretty good.
With their lone All-Star finally back on the floor, the Nets looked like a completely different team, a better team. He gave them pace, he gave them a transition game. And on Monday night, Utah lost 147-114 in front of a crowd of 16,054 at Barclays Center.
Simmons played for the first time since Nov. 6 after missing 38 consecutive games with a compressed nerve in his back.
But there was no rust, just playmaking and energy that the Nets sorely lacked, helping them build a 35-point cushion.
“Yeah, that’s good. His energy and fresh legs are there,” Nick Claxton said before the game. “We’re in a pretty desperate situation right now. We need a win. We don’t have time to be on cruise control right now. We’ve suffered a lot of losses, so we need to make sure we lock in. We need to get out there and get ready.”
Mikal Bridges scored a team-high 33 points on 6-of-14 shooting from deep, and Claxton added 11 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks. But Simmons became the man of the moment with his infectious ball movement.
Simmons had a triple-double with 10 points, a game-high 11 assists and eight boards.
Despite being carefully restricted by his performance team, he achieved an impressive score of plus-27 in just 18 minutes and 14 seconds.
His passing was contagious, as the Nets dished out a season-high 41 assists and had eight scorers in double figures. This is the third time since 2000 that the Nets have recorded 40 assists.
His most important contribution came off the bench in the first quarter and immediately sparked a 20-7 run in 4 minutes, 34 seconds. But his most memorable steal from Lauri Markkanen, when he drove the ball over the Jazz All-Star for a breakaway dunk of his own for a 92-77 lead with 3:25 left. It was something like that.
The Nets rode the momentum and made consecutive layups by Simmons to make it a 26-point lead, making it 126-100, 128-102 with 5:36 left.
He left with 3 minutes and 27 seconds to play, and Brooklyn was up with 29 minutes to play.
High-priced and injury-prone, Simmons has been limited to just six games this season and has appeared in a total of 48 games since Brooklyn acquired him at the 2021-22 trade deadline.
Simmons is making $37.9 million this season and $40.3 million next season, so winning isn’t the only thing the Nets are hungry for. They desperately need to get Simmons right and keep him there.
When asked if Simmons needs to stay healthy before the team can trust him, Vaughn replied: He got approval from the performance team… so he’s another basketball player for us. He will try to help us win. I’m going to keep it as simple as possible. ”
Simmons helped them out on Monday. A Nets team that was 5-17 after starting 13-10 needed a spark and they got it.
The Nets made 21 of 45 from deep, with Simmons pushing the pace and creating open looks from 3-pointers.
And after a disastrous attempt to go into drop coverage, the Nets have been able to play better on defense over the last month since returning to a switching scheme. Simmons only helps with that.
“That’s a big plus. He can really guard and on top of that he can rebound,” Cam Johnson said. “Everything we want to do as a team, he fits that mold.
“I’m excited. He’s a big part of what we want to do. I only got to play the first game of the season with him, but even then it felt fresh. [from my own hamstring injury], So it wasn’t necessarily full go. So I’m really excited to get back to the team and re-establish that chemistry and the way we want to play. ”
