‘We were warned about that’: Why Nets are not overly worried by Simmons’ latest injury blow

Ben Simmons, who didn’t play in any respect final season, is now out for the third time already this season with a sore left knee.

The questions now for the Nets are: How a lot time will he miss? How usually it would preserve taking place? And how will they modify with out him — once more?

Simmons — who was pressured out of the Nets’ win over the Magic with 9:03 left within the first half Monday with the harm — has already been formally dominated out of the sport towards the visiting Wizards. It would be the sixth recreation he has missed this season.

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“So he had some left knee soreness, that same knee. Asked to be pulled out of the game,” stated coach Jacque Vaughn, who didn’t anticipate the 26-year-old All-Star to have any additional imaging on the knee.

“We’ll check him day by day, see how he responds with a little treatment, see what it looks like.”

The Nets provided no particulars on whether or not Simmons had an MRI examination or when he would return. Simmons’ agent, Rich Paul, didn’t reply to texts or telephone messages.

After lacking all of final season with each psychological well being woes and a foul again, Simmons, who was acquired by the Nets on February 10 within the commerce that despatched James Harden to the 76ers, underwent a microdiscectomy process in May to restore a herniated L-4 disk. He has since revealed that he additionally had nerve harm.

Now, the aftereffects of that harm on his proper facet, together with the pressure of a full-time return to play, are having a predictable affect on his left facet.

“More so than anything, the accumulation of games,” Vaughn stated, referring to the impact of the NBA grind on Simmons.

“He hasn’t had this amount of accumulation of games over a period of a long time.

“[We] talked to the performance team about that. We were warned about that just as these games start to add up. His cumulative load as that begins to add up, it’s really stretching him sometimes the amount of games we’ve just had with the minutes that he’s played pretty high.”

Unfortunately, the Nets are rising accustomed to taking part in with out Simmons.

The knee subject value him 4 straight video games from October 31 by way of November 5, in addition to the Nov. 13 loss on the Lakers.

“We’ve just got to play smaller,” Kevin Durant stated.

“He’s one of our bigs out there.

“We’ve got to play a little faster, and we’ve all just got to do a good job of gang rebounding and doing the little stuff when he’s not out there. So we have practice with him not being in the lineup, and we were able to figure some stuff out.”

Simmons’ final absence was each brief and finally helpful.

Before sitting out that recreation on the Lakers, Simmons had averaged 5.2 factors, 6.2 rebounds and 5.9 assists — all career-lows — and was a team-worst minus-43. Since his return, nevertheless, Simmons had discovered his finest kind as a Net.

In seven video games previous to Monday, Simmons averaged 13.6 factors, and his plus-29 was second on the Nets. His 7.6 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 1.6 steals have been all workforce highs. Simmons completed scoreless in 11:24 towards the Magic with 4 boards and three assists.

The Nets can solely hope the issue isn’t persistent, and that this newest relaxation proves as productive because the final one.

“Health is the number one priority, so we want him to be at his best,” Kyrie Irving stated.

“I’m glad our medical staff, coaching staff, him himself, we all agreed he’d sit down in the second half to save him for games that matter going into the future … games that we’re going to need him most.

“But when he’s not out there we don’t have our point forward, our point guard, being able to initiate easy opportunities, push the ball in transition; so we’ll definitely miss him in the lineup. Hopefully he comes back [soon], but if he’s dealing with it we just want him to get as healthy as possible and we’ll figure it out.”

This article first appeared on The New York Postand was reproduced with permission.