The Sixers lost a tight battle with the Wizards on Wednesday night in D.C., as Washington edged out the Processors 120-115. While Philadelphia dropped to 1-0 on the season, hanging tight with Washington, now arguably the East’s second best team after Gordon Hayward’s injury, bodes well for them going forward in their quest to return to the playoffs.
Their ability to achieve that goal will likely rest on the shoulders of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, with Markelle Fultz’s development being a close third — although, after the opener it might be whether Robert Covington can continue to be a lights out shooter on a team otherwise lacking on the perimeter.
Embiid picked up Wednesday night where he left off last season prior to his knee injury, scoring 18 points and pulling down 13 boards in a tidy 26 minutes of work. Productivity isn’t the concern for Embiid so much as how much can he play. We saw on Wednesday that his minutes restriction is already something of a guideline not a rule, but they’ll need to maximize his minutes to be a playoff team.
Simmons likewise filled up the stat sheet on Wednesday with 18 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and two steals, asserting his presence in his NBA debut. After the game, reporters asked the question that every rookie faces after his first game: How did it feel? His answer, was an interesting one, although one we might should expect from a confident 21-year-old, via Bleacher Report.
“It felt like I was playing [NBA] 2K honestly,” Ben Simmons, the aforementioned 6’10” point guard, told reporters after the game. “Just looking at [Joel] Embiid out there with the lights on his jersey. I was like, ‘Man, I’m actually here.’ It’s fun. I’m enjoying it. Lot of games left.”
The Sixers’ massive point guard certainly posted video game like numbers, doing a little bit of everything in his debut. What makes Simmons’ comment even funnier is it coming from a player who tweeted out earlier this year he wouldn’t play NBA 2K18 because he still wasn’t pleased with his rating from a year ago. Simmons seems to have come around on 2K and is back on board, or at the least remembers what it felt like to play before his boycott.
