The Brooklyn Nets find themselves in a 3-0 hole to the Boston Celtics in their first-round series in part of the 2022 NBA playoffs. Normally, a 7-seed losing both games on the road to start the series against a 2-seed wouldn’t be breaking news, but it’s a little concerning that a team featuring basketball savants and offensive geniuses Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are facing a potential sweep.
Despite the individual brilliance of Durant and Kyrie Irving, this Nets team is still deeply flawed. The roster is severely lacking in playmaking, rim protection, and athleticism.
Steve Nash has massively disappointed as a coach, more so acting as a motivator than an actual tactician. But Brooklyn has the piece that could fill almost all of their holes already on the team; he just hasn’t set foot on the court yet.
Following the James Harden-Ben Simmons swap, a faction of analysts believed that the Brooklyn Nets actually came out on top, as they were able to shore up their depth, separate themselves from a detached Harden, and possibly land the best overall player in the trade in Ben Simmons.
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Of course, that all changed when Simmons experienced an actual injury after sitting out the majority of the season for non-basketball reasons.
Now, though, there’s been some encouraging news for Simmons’s return.
How can Ben Simmons revitalize a Nets team that is staring down a 3-0 hole?
Pundits might be wondering how effective Simmons can be after not playing a game for almost a year. The question is a fair one. After all, not only would Ben10 be making a return to the court after a long layoff, but he’ll also be integrating into a completely new squad, with new teammates, and a new system.
However, it’s fairly clear that Simmons can be dropped into a simple role in which he can still make a major impact. He can accomplish this by becoming Bruce Brown 2.0.
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Like Simmons, Bruce Brown is a non-shooter who makes his money on the defensive end of the court. Simmons, however, is six or seven inches taller, a Defensive Player of the Year candidate when healthy, and also happens to be a wizard with the ball in his hands despite not having a jump shot.
Simply by deploying Simmons into Brown’s role and spots on the court, the Brooklyn Nets will massively upgrade their ceiling and give the Boston Celtics a completely different dimension to have to worry about.
On offense, the Nets mostly use Brown as a screener, as having him roll to the rim can balance his non-threat as a shooter. However, since he’s not an elite offensive threat even moving towards the basket, the Celtics can trap off of his screens and force him to make a decision or a play.
Brown has experienced success in this role, at least enough so to keep him on the court to provide his elite defense. In 2021-22, he averaged 9.0 points and 2.1 assists acting mainly as a short roller and tertiary ballhandler. While he did make the floater in the above clip, imagine Simmons getting to attack that wide-open lane. He could lob it up to the low man, kick it out to an open shooter, or just slam it home himself.
Boston is seemingly getting more aggressive with trapping Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, knowing that they’re better off leaving Brooklyn’s other players open than trying to guard those two one-on-one. In this play, Brown sets a screen for Durant and both Celtics defenders come off to shade Durant.
As Brown isn’t much of an offensive threat, Kevin Durant decides that a contested triple coming off of the pick is most likely a better result than swinging it to Brown and whatever comes from it.
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Even though Ben10 wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the wide-open triple opportunity either, he’s much more dangerous driving to the hoop with an open lane than Brown is. In that situation, the Cs would either be giving up an easy two to Simmons or collapsing the paint and risking Simmons finding an open teammate from deep.
Outside of Bruce Brown’s role, Ben Simmons is the most natural playmaker on the Nets roster. While KD and Kyrie are plenty capable of creating for themselves and finding an open man when the opportunity presents itself, Simmons would bring the offensive balance that only a true floor general can.
Having Simmons to run pick-and-rolls and pick apart defenses would prevent the Nets from settling for tough shots like the one above. Brooklyn can’t just count on KD and Kyrie’s tough shot-making to carry them through this series, especially against an elite defense like Boston’s.
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On defense, Simmons is a 6’10 behemoth that is equally as adept at defending the rim from the weak side as he is chasing elite perimeter threats around the arc. While Bruce Brown is no slouch on that end of the court, having Simmons’s size, as well as another top-tier perimeter stopper, would be a game-changer for Brooklyn’s defense.
Adding a 6’10 rim protector who can also reasonably slow down Jayson Tatum on the perimeter would be an absolute boon to the Nets’ defense, not to mention that it would allow Kevin Durant to conserve more of his energy for offense.
The odds are massively stacked against the Brooklyn Nets even after Ben Simmons’ return to the lineup. No team has ever overcome being down 3-0 in a series. At the very least, they can get a look at what their team could build around for the 2022-23 season.
