DALLAS — Ben Simmons has shown he can get back to playing well, maybe even play like his old self.
But he hasn’t shown he can do it alongside Nic Claxton.
That’s the challenge for the Nets, for whom something good is seemingly always followed by something worrying.
“That’s definitely been addressed from me in front of this group. It is staring us in the face. And like I said, we have to look at how do we play with Ben with another big on the floor?” coach Jacque Vaughn admitted. “You can only play five dudes out there at one time. We’ve got to start a certain group, we want certain dudes to play; how do we get all that to mesh within the course of a game and the season?
“Ben still has the ability to attack and have pace no matter who’s out there on the floor, especially the way teams are going to guard. So some nights when we do go small and we have more shooting out there, we have to take advantage of that. On the nights where Nic is with him, then we have to be better on the defensive end of the floor and allow us to get stops and run. So that’s the connection there.
“Then we can’t allow people to get to the paint as much or to the rim as much with Nic and Ben. … Then we’ve got to figure out, like I’ve talked about, the spacing around it, and not playing in the half-court. It’s staring us in the face that we are better at playing in transition and in fullcourt basketball than in the half-court. And the sooner we realize that as a group, the better off we’re going to be.”
It’s hard to imagine the Nets haven’t realized it.
The concern isn’t panic over a handful of minutes this season and last.
Simmons’ difficulty playing alongside another non-shooter has been a topic of discussion since his 76ers days with Joel Embiid.
While Simmons did coexist with Claxton for large stretches last season, the duo was flanked by stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, as well as shooters Joe Harris, Seth Curry, Patty Mills and Yuta Watanabe.
Since the team got remade in February, it’s been more of a struggle.
Simmons had 10 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists Friday in Dallas, driving the lane, attacking the rim, and looking like the player Brooklyn needs him to be.
He was dangerous surrounded by four shooters, with stretch-4 Dorian Finney-Smith filling in for the injured Claxton as a 6-foot-7, 220-pound small-ball center.
But the dark cloud obscuring the silver lining?
He did it with Claxton out and Day’Ron Sharpe logging just four minutes, shorthanded Brooklyn experimenting with a wide-open five-out lineup they clearly won’t start once Claxton returns.
Robbed of so much gravity, the Nets will need to compensate with meticulous spacing.
“It’s reads and learning. Repetition. We haven’t had too many reps of doing it, so I think the more reps the better obviously and we’ll figure it out,” Simmons said. “That comes with time. It’s basketball at the end of the day; there’s no magic secret to it. It’s a feel, it’s reads, it’s guys with talent, IQ. Just got to play into that, lean and trust — trust in your players.”
While Simmons and Claxton had a plus-5.7 Net Rating in 517 minutes together last season, almost all of those were pre-trade. In their six minutes from Feb. 9 on, they were a minus-70.
This season, their Net Rating is a minus-17.6 in 15.6 minutes.
And the nominal starting lineup playing them alongside Spencer Dinwiddie, Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson was a minus-100 (with a horrid 77.8 Offensive Rating).
“[It’s vital that we’re] not playing the half-court where teams are able to use our non-shooters against us to crowd the floor,” Vaughn said. “So there’s a process I think that we’ve got to be patient about, but keeping things extremely simple, I think will be good for us to live in that space.”
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