In Sixers’ potential playoff preview against Nets, Ben Simmons shows he can be an X-factor on defense | David Murphy

It ended with the third-string center taking a couple of three-point attempts, one of them with a man in his face in the corner. The Sixers did not just win a game, but they won it handily, and they did it against a team that has given them fits, one that in many ways embodies what is supposed to be their Kryptonite.

This was a big one, and not just in terms of the final score. The Nets entered as a team lurking in the distant rearview of many local nightmares. Take away the Celtics and the Raptors and the Bucks, and they are the one potential opponent who might make you think twice about predicting a first-round cake walk. The Sixers entered Thursday night’s game having lost to them twice this season, and very nearly three times. And each of those games played out in a familiar-enough pattern to instill an inordinate amount of intrigue in any postseason matchup.

But by the end of a 123-110 victory, the ghosts of months past had returned to their netherworld. By no means was it a perfect win. The Nets contributed plenty to their own demise, turning the ball over 15 times and getting a curious 6-for-19 shooting night out of D’Angelo Russell in what has been a renaissance season for the former No. 2 overall pick. At the same time, the Sixers had plenty to do with both of those developments, none more so than a player who exists chiefly in a lot of minds on the offensive side of the ball.

Ben Simmons didn’t simply have a good night. He was a difference-maker, to an extent that he made you wonder whether you’ve been underselling this team all along. The Nets came out of the gates looking to do to the Sixers what they did in the first three games of the season series, when they scored 122, 125, and 127 points on the strength of a deadly pick-and-roll game orchestrated by a lightning-quick backcourt featuring Russell, Spencer Dinwiddie, and, at least in the first meeting, Caris LeVert. The Sixers’ struggles against the Nets did not crop up spontaneously. They’ve been there against Charlotte’s Kemba Walker and Memphis’ Mike Conley, and in May’s playoff series against Terry Rozier and the Celtics. But more than anybody else, Brooklyn made it clear just how much of a liability the Sixers’ on-ball defense could be.

This time, though, the Nets went nowhere, as Simmons spent the first two quarters of play fighting through screens and beating Dinwiddie and Russell to spots and disrupting the entire rhythm of their half-court sets. In the final minute of the first half, on two consecutive possessions, Simmons almost single-handedly forced the Nets to settle for off-balance shots. On the first, he got through a screen and kept Dinwiddie in front of them, forcing him to pass to LeVert for a fadeaway that was dead out of his hand. On the second, he did it again, this time leaving Dinwiddie to settle for a low-percentage pull-up that clanked off the rim.

“Let’s face it, it’s a pick-and-roll sport, it’s grown to be a pick-and-roll sport, and so you better be able to guard one," Sixers coach Brett Brown said. “With his size, and with the effort he applied tonight, he was special.”

The performance came at an opportune time, not the least for those of us who spend each new batch of 48 minutes trying to picture just how far the Sixers can go. It was their first game against the Nets in the new calendar year, and the difference between this team and the ones that took the court in those games was stark. It isn’t just Simmons, whose rate of improvement on the defensive end of the court seems exponential in nature. It is Joel Embiid, whose improved conditioning and coordination and control on the move has brought him to a point where you have to remind yourself that he just dropped 39 points. It is Jimmy Butler, who continues to become a more active participant in the offense. The Sixers are seeing what he can do when he has the ball in his hands and can dictate flow. Or, maybe, he is showing them.

Even the bench held its own, coming up with a big stop or a big bucket every time the Nets seemed close to creeping back within reach.

“They have a lot of guys who can play off the pick-and-roll, especially D’Angelo, who’s a tremendous player,” Simmons said. “He didn’t have a crazy offensive night tonight, but I think we all did a great job in terms of that.”

It goes without saying that, all things being equal, the Sixers would rather avoid a first-round matchup with the Nets. But, for at least one night, what once was a reasonable concern seemed something much less than that.