Ben Simmons wasn’t active for the Nets in his return to Philadelphia on Thursday, but he was on the mind of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
Durant scored 25, Irving dropped 22 and former 76ers guard Seth Curry added 24 in a dominant 129–100 win over the 76ers, a statement win for a Nets team that has struggled since the calendar turned to 2022.
Both Durant and Irving acknowledged the treatment that Simmons received as a spectator on Thursday. In his postgame comments, Irving made it clear that the team has embraced the player acquired in the James Harden trade, and that this win was as much for Simmons as anyone else on the roster.
“I think playing for Ben and this night meaning something to Ben, not only Ben but Dre [Andre Drummond], Seth [Curry],” Irving said after the game. “When you get traded in this league it’s not easy to deal with, and you pick up your stuff that you’ve made a home out of. You’re in one city and then you have to transfer to another city. It’s not always easy. So we’ve tried to welcome them in with open arms.
“So when we played tonight, we definitely felt like Ben was on our heart. You could see it, he was wearing it. And we just wanted to go out there and play for him and play well. But again, it’s not an individual thing for us. We all felt it, we’re all there, we all deal. If you come at Ben, you come at us. If you come at anyone else on our team, you come at all of us, and that’s the mentality.”
The Nets moved back over .500 with the win and currently sit in eighth place in the Eastern Conference at 34–33. The team is still five games back of avoiding the play-in round, with the Cavaliers at 38–27 in sixth place.
Simmons is still working his way into basketball form, and suffered a recent back injury that pushed back his return. It is unclear when he’ll make his Nets debut and play in his first game of the 2021–22 season.
