Anfernee Simons had an auspicious debut with the 76ers last week at Madison Square Garden, with the ninth-year guard going 5-for-10 and scoring 13 points, which included three key three-pointers when the franchise couldn’t get much else to fall.
Since then it has been slow going for Simons, who has shot 3-for-21 combined in the three games since the opener.
This isn’t the first time Simons has endured a rough stretch of shooting in his career, so he wasn’t sweating the misses when he spoke after practice Tuesday. And he has a routine to help him break out of it.
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“Usually, if I’m struggling for a couple games, I might just want to go on the court, see the ball go through the hoop a whole bunch of times,” Simons said. “So I might get a whole bunch of reps in or just do 30 minutes, kind of a hard workout just to feel back in rhythm.”
One factor that might be contributing to Simons’ struggles is how his preseason went. Simons was nursing a hamstring injury that kept him out of a number of practices and all four preseason games. Without that runway to get his shot in gear, Simons is having to find his rhythm in the games that count.
“You can see now a little bit, not playing and not being able to play in preseason kind of held me back a little bit,” Simons said. “But just like I said before, you’re going to be able to see throughout these first 20 games how it’s going to look. I’ll be able to get comfortable with what type of shots I’ll get on a game-to-game basis.”
Simons, like the rest of the Sixers, is also learning his new teammates, and where his shots may come from in the flow of the offense. That’s something Simons also missed by not being able to practice.
“It’s just all those things that happen at one time,” he said. “So it can feel a little bit like a lot, but each and every game I feel like it’s getting more and more comfortable. After that, obviously where your shot’s coming from, you know what your role is, how that feels on a game-to-game basis.”
After the loss to Detroit, coach Nick Nurse said Simons still played a “great” game despite a 2-for-10 shooting line.
“It’s hard to not play in training camp and in any preseason games, and then you get into that incredibly intense part of it, and it [can] take a toll,” Nurse said. “But I really like him. I think he’s going to be an explosive scorer for us, and we’ll get there with him for sure.”