Nets' Discuss Latest Goal For Ben Simmons

The Brooklyn Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn broke down what the goal for Ben Simmons is after Wednesday's loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

It was a tale of two halves for Brooklyn Nets point forward Ben Simmons in Wednesday's loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. 

Welcomed with roaring boos when he stepped foot on the Wells Fargo Center in front of his former fanbase, it took a while for Simmons to become aggressive. In fact, it took a whole half for him to look to score. 

“You become what you think about. So if you're thinking about being aggressive, you will be aggressive," said Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn on Simmons' flipping the scoring switch in the second half postgame. "If you think about being a good teammate, you'll be a good teammate. If you think about competing and playing hard, you do those things. You become what you think about.” 

The Nets' point forward scored all of his 12 points in the second half in the defeat to the Sixers on Wednesday night. He shot 5-of-7 from the field, tallying five rebounds and five assists along the way. 

For Brooklyn, the team wants Simmons to play with force on each possession. In other words, his impact being felt on both ends of the floor throughout the time he spent on the hardwood during each contest. 

"That's the goal. That’s where we're going to get him to where each possession he has to be dealt with on both ends of the floor. Where you feel him on both ends of the floor, and he imposes his will and has an impact on every single possession, which he has the ability to do. That's where we're going to get to," Vaughn stated. "That's the challenge and we're going to continue to expect it from him. Like I told him, we expect to when we step out on the floor, no excuses at all. We expect to win tonight. We expect to win tomorrow. We expect to play hard every single time we step on the floor. So we're gonna get our guys to do that every single night.” 

Outside of the head coach, Simmons has the support of his teammates. After Wednesday's loss at Wells Fargo Center, Kyrie Irving explained how the team is holding him accountable, and not losing confidence in their point forward. 

“Just don’t lose confidence in him and look him eye to eye and just hold him accountable. That’s what we do every single day," said Irving on Simmons. "We don’t want to duck anything when it comes to us building camaraderie. When I say duck, it just means sometimes confrontation’s good, meaning what happens in the locker room or happens out on the court. Sometimes you guys see it, sometimes you don’t. Encouragement could look many different ways. We just want to continue to hammer home that our best team effort is when we’re all playing well and staying aggressive and just taking shots that the defense is giving us."  

So simple ingredients for this basketball game, don’t want to complicate it, but in terms of Ben, we just want him to continue to be aggressive and when he figures it out, he figures it out. When it clicks for him, it’s gonna click and we’re gonna look even better. I’m seeing flashes, I think we’re all seeing flashes, we just want him to keep it up, keep up the good work.”

Despite Simmons having trouble maintaining an aggressive scoring approach throughout each game, instead of small stints, the Nets remain fully confident in his ability. The team also holds confidence that the three-time NBA All-Star will be able to find himself on the hardwood soon. 

Here's how Vaughn broke down how he views Simmons' growth on the court ... 

"Yeah, it's easy for me to look at the possession so I don't look at it wasn't a great quarter? Was it a great half? Was it a great five-minute stretch? No. When I watched the film, what happened to this possession right here? Did you box out this possession, and this is the entire group? Did you have physicality? Or did someone know PJ Tucker delivered the first blow? Did you run the floor with force? Did you try to get to the paint this entire group? Did you play that single possession so that's how I watched the games? So I judge each guy and they expect expectations from each guy.” 

Simmons is averaging 7.5 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 6.4 assists in 27.5 minutes per game this season.