Ben Simmons had an evening to forget, or rather a series of evenings to forget following Philadephia 76ers’ exit from the playoffs at the hand of Atlanta Hawks. The point guard struggled offensively and his refusal to take shots turned the tide of the game in the fourth quarter.
The former Rookie Of The Year could only score 5 points in the game and the offense was largely on the shoulders of Seth Curry and Joel Embiid. They were the only players that managed to score in the second half of the contest.
Ben Simmons only took 3 field goal attempts in the long drawn out series and none of it came in the final four games. When he had an opportunity to do so late in Game 7, he passed the ball to Matisse Thybulle, who in turn, was fouled.
And this is the moment Joel Embiid believes, changed the game altogether. With the score 88-86 in favour of the Hawks, Thybulle could only convert one of the two free-throw attempts.
On the other end of the court, Trae Young stuck a crucial three to expand the lead to 6 points.
“Man, I will be honest. I thought the turning point was you know when we, I don’t know how to say it, but I thought the turning point was just we had an open shot and we made one free throw and we missed the other and they came down and scored,” Embiid said after the game
Following the result, Doc Rivers was asked about ben Simmons’ potential to be a point guard for a championship-winning team.
“I don’t even know the answer to that right now,” said coach Rivers in reply
Simmons shoulders responsibility for the loss
The player’s struggles from the free throw line was well documented heading into the series, but things took a turn worse than expected.
Simmons ended up with the worst free throw percentage in NBA Playoffs history with at least 70 attempts.
In the decisive finale, he could only muster 5 points and he admitted his role in the defeat.
“I ain’t shoot well from the line this series, Offensively, I wasn’t there. I didn’t do enough for my teammates. … There’s a lot of things that I need to work on.” the three-time All-Star said
Also Read:
