Steve Nash said he’s disappointed Ben Simmons won’t get to play in the Nets’ do-or-die Game 4 Monday night, but not disappointed in the three-time All-Star.
Simmons had said he expected to play in this first-round series against Boston, and the Nets are facing elimination Monday night down 0-3. But with Simmons ruled out Sunday night, Nash insists he never had any real expectations of the 25-year-old playing, and claimed those reports from ESPN and The Athletic were outside chatter and white noise.
“I mean, I wasn’t really expecting him to play. Like we’ve said all along, he’s trying to improve, he’s working through it. Reports that he was playing were from the outside, I don’t know where that came from,” Nash said. “So we kind of stick to what we’ve always said; he’s still building himself up, still working through things, still trying to get strong enough and put himself in a position to play.”
Simmons hasn’t played all season. He sat out with the 76ers citing mental health issues, and then after arriving in a Feb. 10 trade, he suffered a back injury while ramping up to make his Brooklyn debut.
Ben Simmons (r.) practicing with Patty Mills (l.) at the Nets’ training facility on April 22, 2022.Corey Sipkin
Suffering from a herniated L-4 disk in his lower back, Simmons had been in a race against time.
Dr. Rahul Shah, a board certified orthopedic spine and neck surgeon, told The Post Simmons was almost certain to miss the rest of the season. And a source close to Simmons acknowledged to The Post, “It’s just a timing thing. The problem is the season is running out.”
Brooklyn’s season could run out altogether with a loss Monday to the Celtics.
After Simmons got an epidural in mid-March, he made marked improvement over the last three weeks. But after having pain-free contact workouts last Monday, Wednesday and Saturday – giving rise to reports that he’d debut in Game 4…