After Ben Simmons scored only six points on 3-of-9 shooting in the Philadelphia 76ers' Game 1 victory over the Washington Wizards, he found himself facing a familiar avalanche of criticism about whether his offensive limitations would hinder his team's chances of winning a championship.
He responded emphatically with 22 points on 11-of-15 shooting, nine rebounds, eight assists, two steals and a block in the Sixers' 120-95 rout of the Wizards in Game 2 on Wednesday night, quieting those concerns for now.
In doing so, Simmons demonstrated the pick-your-poison dilemma that the Wizards are facing with him in this series.
In Game 1, the Wizards routinely formed a wall between Simmons and the basket and dared him to shoot. Rather than take the bait, he instead racked up a playoff career-high 15 assists, including six to Tobias Harris and three each to Danny Green and Seth Curry.
"What I did the first game, my guys were feeling it," Simmons said Wednesday. "Tobias was scoring, Joel [Embiid]'s scoring. That's the point of basketball, right? If people have it going, you're gonna give them the ball."
Simmons also made his impact felt defensively in Game 1. He racked up a game-high 15 rebounds—including eight offensive boards—and held Wizards star Bradley Beal to 1-of-6 shooting when he was Beal's primary defender.
"I thought he was special tonight," Sixers head coach Doc Rivers said after that game. "Whoever he guarded struggled scoring. He created so many points for us tonight, off the glass to three, off transition to three, creating switches that they didn't want to have. He's a treasure."
Whereas Simmons' scoring took a backseat to his playmaking in Game 1, he came out with a different mindset in Game 2.
In the first quarter alone, Simmons scored a team-high 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting, stoking the Sixers to an early double-digit lead that they would not relinquish. He also dished out five assists in his first nine-minute stint, matching the Wizards' teamwide total.
On the first play of the game, Simmons found himself matched up against Russell Westbrook, who's giving up eight inches and 40 pounds to him. He signaled to Curry to clear out from the paint, and he proceeded to bully his way straight through Westbrook en route to an easy layup.
Later in the first quarter, he again took advantage of a one-on-one mismatch, this time against Davis Bertans. When the 6'10" Wizards forward flopped in an attempt to draw a charge, Simmons waltzed past him for a soaring dunk.
Simmons' aggressiveness as a scorer began to open up shot opportunities for his teammates as the game went on.
In the second quarter, four Wizards converged upon the paint to stymie a Simmons drive to the basket. He kicked the ball out to a wide-open Embiid, who promptly splashed home a triple.
Afterward, Rivers explained what changed for Simmons in Games 1 and 2.
"They were giving us space," he said. "And that's one of the things, when they don't give space, Ben's gonna drive and kick off. He'll create points by passing. When they do give space, then Ben drives to score. And tonight, they kinda changed what they were doing on Joel, which gave Ben more room. They were also sprinting back out to our shooters, which gave Ben more room. And he was great and took advantage of it."
Simmons' versatility is what makes him such a valuable weapon for the Sixers. Depending on an opponent's defensive game plan, he can either force the issue as a scorer or lean on his playmaking to facilitate for his teammates.
Although Simmons scored only six points in Game 1, he manufactured 35 others by assisting on 10 two-pointers and five triples. Single-game plus/minus can be noisy, but he earned every bit of his plus-18 rating that night (second only to Embiid's plus-20).
"I thought it was pretty hard to get 15 assists and 15 rebounds in the NBA in the playoffs," Simmons said Wednesday. "I thought that was pretty impressive. And we won. So, I mean, what y'all want? You want to win, or I don't know? For me, I'm here to win. And I'm doing what I need to do to help my team win. Whatever it is, I'm gonna do that every night."
With some nudging from his All-Star teammate, Simmons set the tone early in Game 2 with his scoring rather than his playmaking.
"The whole game, they just didn't want to leave me alone," Embiid said. "So I just told him, 'You got all the space and all the time in the world. Just attack, just be aggressive one-on-one. … Obviously every game, there's adjustments. The first game, he took what the defense gave him. He made plays, he got guys open, he had 15 assists. Tonight, he saw that they didn't want to leave me alone and he had a lot of space with a one-on-one matchup, and he took advantage of it."
All year, Rivers has repeatedly said how little he cares about Simmons' scoring totals. Instead, he's fixated on whether he's getting downhill and making plays for his teammates.
After Game 2, he sang a similar tune about Simmons' impact.
"It's all about us scoring points," Rivers said. "And whichever way we do it, I'm good with that. If we had scored 130 and Ben had the same numbers as the first game, that would have meant that he was great in doing something else. That's what I mean. His value to us, you can't measure it."
Until Simmons adds a jump shot, he'll likely remain one of the NBA's most polarizing players. That's the only thing holding him back from vaulting into the MVP conversation, and it would raise the Sixers' ceiling as well.
However, the focus on his scoring gets overblown at times. The Sixers outscored opponents by 8.1 points per 100 possessions during the regular season with him on the floor, which ranked in the 91st percentile leaguewide.
Simmons' willingness to take what defenses give him and defer to his teammates when needed makes him a lightning rod for criticism, much like what LeBron James faced early in his career. But by playing the odds correctly, good process should beget good results over the long run.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac.
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