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Tim BontempsESPN
Winston Churchill once said of Russia, “It is an enigma wrapped in a mystery within an enigma.” If there’s an NBA equivalent to that quote, it’s Ben Simmons, the Philadelphia 76ers star.
There may not be a more confused player in the NBA than Simmons. It has the size and strength of a center, but it plays with the speed and vision of a passing guard. He can run and is able to guard all five positions on the field in a way that no one else in the league can.
However, at the same time, he will not shoot with 3 pointers – or even often even mid jumps. And for all the things he does to help win, his offensive fit has become an endless source of debate in Philadelphia and beyond – playing especially with Sixers star center Joel Embiid.
Example: Monday night, with Embiid a late scratch due to a tight back, Simmons lined up in the center for the Sixers at the Utah Jazz, the team with the best record in the NBA.
So what did Simmons do? Make the best game of your career, scoring 42 career points, with nine rebounds and 12 assists – all without making a single shot out of the paint.
In the end, the Jazz prevailed, defeating the Sixers 134-123 to get the 19th victory in the last 20 games.
However, the story was that Simmons was playing with the kind of aggression that Sixers fans rarely see.
“I mean, if you say that, you probably won’t,” Simmons said with a smile when asked if he had ever been so aggressively offensive in his NBA career.
“There are nights when I feel like I’m dominant, but it might not look like a 40-point game. I might have a triple-double and I could win by 20, whatever. he could be on the defensive. [But] yes, I definitely had to take the weakness with Joel. “
Simmons is right. His game is so often to do things that do not appear in the boxing score, whether it is how he is able to block the elite scorers from the other teams or set up his teammates for 3 open points.
But the reason Monday’s performance was so open is that, despite his prodigious physical gifts, Simmons rarely imposes his will in the game as he did against Jazz, especially in the first quarter. As Philadelphia headed for a 42-35 lead, Simmons finished the quarter with 19 points and four assists and scored or created 12 of Philadelphia’s 16 baskets.
In his first 24 outings this season, Simmons scored at least as many points in an entire game three times. On Monday night, he did it in the first 12 minutes – all while facing jazz center Rudy Gobert and sometimes scoring even over the league’s best defensive player.
“We anticipated that once Joel was scratched, we tried to create a line for Gobert to guard Ben,” Sixers coach Doc Rivers said. “That’s what happened, and the key for us was to stop and take her to Ben and pick her up on the floor.
“I felt like there was no one left with him, especially a center. So I thought Ben did very well.”
Monday’s loss was the third in a row for Philadelphia, which still remains in the top of the Eastern Conference due to recent fights from other competitors. But in those three losses, Simmons slowly seemed to be more aggressive offensively. Although that was clear on Monday, he scored 23 points in last Thursday’s loss to the Portland Trail Blazers – his previous season – and followed by 18 points in Saturday’s loss to the Phoenix Suns.
He scored just 18 points in a game twice throughout the season before the game in Portland. Now, he did it three times.
And, according to Simmons, this trend is not an accident.
“Honestly, I worked on my mentality, my mentality [game], a lot in the last few weeks, “Simmons said.” I think my mindset … it’s not easy to do that, to change the way you play or certain things in the game that are natural to certain people.
“I feel like I realize. Obviously, my score has been much higher in the last five, six games. So as long as I can continue to do that, stay stuck and work on my mind. [game], I think it’s scary. “
For the past few seasons, there has been an endless scrutiny of Simmons’ game – such as the lack of a jump shot or the moments when he will disappear in the Philadelphia offense.
As a result, Monday nights, when Simmons was the best player on the floor, are all the more puzzling. Why, if he is able to do this in one night, is he not able to do it more regularly? His last coach, Brett Brown, openly asked him to shoot with 3 points. And he did it – about once a month. His new coach, Rivers, went the other way.
The obvious question, following Monday’s performance – and Embiid’s absence – is whether Simmons can produce like that when he plays alongside the league’s best inside scorer. According to Tobias Harris, Simmons provided that performance because Sixers needed him.
“Ben is a guy, he evaluates the game quite a bit as he plays, and you could see him right at the beginning of the game: he knew he could handle those guys with his speed. And we have just begun to find different ways to involve him. “Harris said.
“… I saw him working on some things, and that was to get into the post and use his body there, which I’m probably not as busy as he is and shoot over them. It’s just an evolution of the game his continuing to unite game after game and also he just had that mindset today.
“He wanted to do everything he could to help us win tonight. And that was, more than anything.”
For the Sixers to be a league-level team, they will need the version of Simmons that came up against the Jazz to be there when he plays alongside Embiid. However, before Monday night, it was unclear whether Simmons was able to support this kind of show.
Now that he’s done that, the question moves when – or if – he’ll do it again. So it holds true for the ultimate enigma of the NBA.