Ben Simmons takes a foul and leaves the game with left knee soreness.
Update: New developments of this story have been moved here.
Brooklyn Nets guard/forward Ben Simmons will not play in Wednesday’s game against Washington (7:30 p.m. ET, NBA League Pass) because of soreness in his left knee. Simmons left Monday’s 109-102 win against the Orlando Magic with left knee soreness and did not return.
He left that game with 9:03 remaining in the second quarter and was replaced in the lineup by big man Nic Claxton. Simmons missed four games from Oct. 31 to Nov. 5 due to swelling in the left knee and had fluid drained from it.
Nets coach Jacque Vaughn told reporters after the game that Simmons asked to leave the game, but added he didn’t anticipate Simmons needing further imaging on the knee.
“He had some left knee soreness, that same knee. Asked to be pulled out of the game,” said Vaughn, per Brian Lewis of the New York Post. “We’ll check him day by day, see how he responds with a little treatment, see what it looks like [Tuesday].”
Vaughn attributed Simmons’ injury to the “accumulation of games” the former All-Star has played after missing all of last season due to various injuries.
Jacque Vaughn discusses the Nets' win and Ben Simmons' injury.
“He hasn’t had this amount of accumulation of games over a period of a long time,” Vaughn said. “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 at some times the amount of games we’ve just had with the minutes that he’s played pretty high going into tonight’s game.”
Simmons has been playing well of late, averaging 11.9 points, 7.1 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 1.4 steals per game while shooting 75% over his last eight games. In his first nine games of 2022-23, Simmons averaged 5.2 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 5.9 apg and 1.1 spg while shooting 44.4% overall.
Nets star Kevin Durant scored 45 points in Monday’s game, a season-high for him, as the Nets climbed back to .500 for the first time since Oct. 21. His load may become heavier and may result in him playing in different lineups if the 6-foot-10 Simmons misses more time.
“We’ve got to play smaller, he’s one of our bigs out there,” Durant said. “So I thought coach did a good job of trying to figure out the small lineup on the fly. We got to play a little faster and I think we all got to do a good job of gang rebounding, doing the little stuff when he’s not out there.
“We have some practice in with him not being in the lineup and we was able to figure some stuff out, so something as drastic as this, him leaving in the (second) quarter, we was able to make that adjustment.”
Simmons, a three-time All-Star, is averaging 8.4 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 5.8 apg and 1.2 spg this season.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
