Ben Simmons shines as Nets thump Bucks in first preseason victory
Nets head coach Steve Nash said it would be ugly before it got pretty.
Who knew pretty would come this fast.
The Nets put forth their best performance of the preseason with a 107-97 victory over Giannis Antetokounpo’s Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night. It was an outing that proved after two ugly performances to begin the preseason, there is, indeed, a light at the end of the tunnel.
A bright light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
The Bucks sat All-Star guard Khris Middleton in the second game of a back-to-back, but the Nets are still dealing with the lingering injury bug: Joe Harris (sore foot), Seth Curry (ankle surgery rehab) and T.J. Warren (foot injury rehab) also missed Wednesday’s game, with Harris as the only lock for the Oct. 19 season opener against the Pelicans.
And yet the Nets were able to compensate for injury in ways last year’s roster wasn’t. In place of Harris, Royce O’Neale started. In place of Curry, second-year guard Cam Thomas touched the court. And each of Ben Simmons, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Nic Claxton played to the level of their expectations for a preseason game.
Simmons had a particularly good outing on all fronts after shaking the 470-day-old rust off in the first two games. He was a Swiss-army knife defined: Simmons orchestrated the offense, crashed the boards and put a body on Antetokounmpo from the opening tip. In fact, Simmons caught Antetokounmpo unaware of the full-court, man-to-man pressure on one defensive possession and forced a steal in the backcourt — that officials blew dead with a tick-tack foul call.
His performance was an encouraging sign for a player who only took three shots against Miami and had almost as many turnovers (8) as assists (9) through the first two games. Simmons finished with seven points and 10 assists against only two turnovers, to go with eight rebounds and two steals on the night.
The highlight of his night won’t show up on the stat sheet: He upended Antetokounmpo while setting a screen for Durant at the three-point line, a screen The Greek Freak is sure to remember the next time these two teams face-off.
Irving led the Nets in scoring with 23 points on four made threes, and Durant added another 19 on 7-of-17 shooting from the field. Claxton also showed his year-over-year growth in the third preseason game: He looked stronger, played smarter and finished with 16 points, nine rebounds, three steals and three blocks — though he only shot two-of-six from the foul line.
Make, however, no mistake: Wednesday night was about Simmons, as many games will be if the Nets are going to make a deep playoff run.
Simmons, for the first time in a Nets jersey, looked as advertised: like the two-way playmaker the Nets envisioned when the franchise pulled the trigger on the blockbuster James Harden trade at the trade deadline last season.
For the first time since Simmons’ arrival, Harden became an afterthought, and Simmons became the future. And if Simmons is only getting better from here — if his early struggles are merely a byproduct of yearlong rust accumulation combined with a slow and steady rehab from offseason back surgery — the Nets, even after just a measly preseason victory against the 2021 NBA champions, could very well be on their way.
It won’t be that easy, of course. Like Nash said, it’ll be ugly before it gets pretty, and the games haven’t even begun to count yet.
