If Simmons has some grievance-related ulterior motive to come back this year for even five minutes then he has painted himself in a PR corner. Granted, he may not care, but nevertheless:
If he comes back in Game 4 and plays well and the Nets win the series, sure that's a good outcome for him, but that's not happening.
If he comes back and looks OK and the Nets lose the series anyway then questions will come as to why he couldn't come back earlier.
If he comes back and looks not good then all off-season there will be questions as to why he came back like he did and whether he is the same player that we used to see.
If he comes back and exacerbates his back down 3-0 then everybody looks bad.
Presumably he won't play. I suppose he wouldn't fit in Flea's stuffed animal pants from the Bust A Move video but those would otherwise be a good attire choice for Game 4.
I think Simmons plays. It's the perfect no-lose situation. If he comes on and stinks, well BRK was going to lose anyways. If BRK looks better at all, he'll be given credit.
The bigger question to me is whose minutes is he taking? I mean is he going to perform any better than Bruce Brown on either end of the court? (Brown has been playing pretty good on the defensive end.) If he takes Claxton's minutes, will BRK still get the ORebs that Claxton got? Are they going to play Bruce Brown and Simmons together? That seems like it will really allow BOS to pack the paint.
If I'm Nash and I'm going to play Simmons, I'd trot out the Claxton / Simmons / Brown / KD / KI lineup to see if they can get some stops and hopefully generate enough offense from transition and KD/KI to make up for the lack of shooting, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
I'm going to guess that Simmons will play limited minutes, will have both flashes of brilliance and flashes of rust, and it really won't move the needle.
High on the list of Celtics advantages for me is coaching. That is not just in-game (which various people have done a great job highlighting) but also what these guys created during the year. Nets had a tough year—Harris injury, KD injury, Kyrie vaccination, Simmons/Harden. So it’s not surprising they have built in little of a system or options. But they haven’t and big picture that lack of structure and flexibility is in massive contrast to what Ime has built. Nets have two great I so players…and not a lot more of a plan.
I wasn’t sure Ime was up to this; I was totally wrong about that. I’ve doubted Nash all along and even acknowledging the tough year that roster has had he still looks underprepared to me
I'm not defending Nash but in terms of the Xs and Ox, he has to have multiple assistants who can pound that stuff out (like Ime did last year I'm sure). The real question to me is what has Nash been able to install?
I just read something that Coach K told DA and POBOBS that one thing about JT is that he wanted to be coached hard. Not sure if KD is like that at this stage of his career or if KI is like that at all. KD and KI probably picked Nash because they know he wouldn't coach them hard. So maybe there's stuff that Nash wanted to do that he couldn't, particularly because of KI's absence.
It will be interesting to see what he does with a full BRK squad next year.