Wednesday wasn't a great night for Ben Simmons regardless of it being his Nets debut, as he played just 23 minutes and had more fouls (six) than points, rebounds, or assists (four, five, and five, respectively) in a 130-108 Nets loss to New Orleans.
It was his first game in more than 16 months, though, and Simmons said he might have been too excited for the contest.
"There's so much going on…I think I was just too excited, honestly, but it was just great to be out there," Simmons said. "We know the reasons we lost, and those are things we can fix. I think there's a lot of jitters out there early on. But it was good to get that one out of the way."
He'll have another chance Friday to right the ship when the Nets play Toronto, but his fellow members of the Nets "Big 3" are preaching patience with the former No. 1 pick.
"He's just got to get reps and minutes, it's as simple as that," said Kyrie Irving, no stranger to missing time himself. "We told him in the locker room he is a valuable piece for us and we need him out there, and fouling out is not an option. Playing aggressive is something that we want him to do, but we also want him to play smart. And we can hold each other accountable like that in the locker room, which I'm glad for, so we talked about it."
"He's a veteran. He knows we've got a long season ahead of us, 81 more of these," added Kevin Durant. "We all have great games and bad games. That's just the nature of our job. But it's about just bouncing back and coming to work tomorrow and figuring it out."
Simmons knows where he needs to improve already.
"A focus that I need to have every game. Whether it's playing at a pace, guarding certain guys, physically be in there, a lot of it…I understand it and accept that responsibility for this team," Simmons said. "So it's not going to happen overnight, but gradually building towards that."
The goal, according to Irving, is to move forward, not revert back to mistakes the Nets made last year, so it will take some time to get Simmons up to speed, but not at the expense of regression.
"It's not time to revert back to old habits. There were a few times where we lost games last year and I could just feel our spirit just down," Irving said. "When we lose games, there are things, obviously, we want to correct. But we don't want to lose this way, which is beating ourselves up and not doing the things that we know the game deserves."
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