Brooklyn Nets: Ben Simmons’ downfall has been startling to witness
By Jeff Mount
If you pay attention to basketball, you know what happened. Game Seven, Eastern Conference Semifinals the 76ers are down by two, with three minutes to go. Ben Simmons fakes Danilo Gallinari out of his shoes and finds himself all alone at the rim, with nothing standing between him and a game-tying dunk.
Except he doesn’t dunk. He hesitates a split second, then dishes to Matisse Thybulle. The delay gives the Hawks time to recover and foul Thybulle, who makes one of two free throws. The Sixers, the top seeds in the East, never lead again in the game and are eliminated from the playoffs.
Looking back, it’s hard to overstate how much that non-dunk changed things. If Philadelphia wins that game, they advance to the Eastern Conference Finals—a spot, by the way, that they still haven’t reached since the whole Process started. In the Finals, they would have met Milwaukee, which had just barely squeaked by a Nets team with Kyrie Irving injured and James Harden hobbling.
With home court in the Conference Finals and, hypothetically, the NBA Finals against Phoenix, who knows where that season goes? As for Simmons, he has played in a total of six games since that day.