Philadelphia 76ers: Simmons records an ugly triple-double against Toronto

As the Philadelphia 76ers’ reigning triple-double king, Ben Simmons recorded his third of the season against Toronto thanks to an 11 turnover performance.

In the Philadelphia 76ers‘ blowout win against the Charlotte Hornets, Ben Simmons put the team on his back and turned in one of the most impressive performances of his young career.

But boy, how the tables have turned with almost no warning.

Roughly 24 hours, and one trip across the border later, the Sixers were the team being blown out by a much more formidable opponent in the Toronto Raptors, and it was Simmons, maybe more so than any other player on the entire roster, who was to blame for the loss.

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After dropping 21 points, nine assists and 12 rebounds against Kemba Walker and company, Simmons backed it up with his third triple-double of the season, only this time with a far less impressive stat line of 11 points, 10 assists, eight rebounds, and 11 turnovers.

11 turnovers.

In 34 minutes of action, Simmons almost doubled his turnover total for the entire season, going from 15 on the 29th to 26 on the 30th, and looked downright ugly in a game that should have served as a measuring stick for the Sixers’ place in the now-wide-open Eastern Conference.

If this game was a measuring stick, it’s pretty clear that the 76ers just don’t measure up to the elite teams in the East, LeBron James or no LeBron James.

Even after rallying back to single digits in the fourth quarter thanks to some major heroics by Joel Embiid, who knocked down three of his four 3-point shots in route to a monster 31 point performance, his fifth such game of the season.

While it’s typically not a good sign to have your center lead the team in outside shooting percentage, as the rest of the Sixers only knocked down 11 of their collective 36 3-point shots, shooting was not Brett Brown‘s squad’s problem against the much better Raptors.

Well, technically it was one of the 76ers’ problems, but had they not turned the ball over 23 times, giving the Raptors even more offensive possessions to knock down 51 percent of their shots from the field in route to a 129 point performance, we may be talking about a very different outcome.

Next. Imagine pairing Ben Simmons with Kemba Walker. dark

But hey, things could be worse, right? At 4-4 with 74 games left to play, the Philadelphia 76ers still have plenty of time to right the ship and get things back on track, even if their current lack of outside shooters will be a whole lot harder to correct in the short-term. While this game will undoubtedly count towards Ben Simmons’ triple-double total for the season, his lowlight performance against the Toronto Raptors is indeed one Philly fans, and the Fresh Prince himself would certainly like to forget.