The Atlanta Hawks prevailed over the Philadelphia 76ers in an intense Game 7 as Ben Simmons disappointed yet again.
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The Philadelphia 76ers despite their best efforts were no match to the Atlanta Hawks in Game 7. The Hawks led by Kevin Huerter and Trae Young won 103-96 in the crucial decider against the Sixers. They will now progress to the Eastern Conference finals and play against the Milwaukee Bucks.
For the Sixers, Joel Embiid despite his health issues have been their best player. The Process yet again dropped 31 points along with 11 boards and three assists. It is mostly because of him that Doc Rivers’ men managed to force the series to Game 7.
Despite Embiid’s best efforts, he did not get much help from the supporting cast. Seth Curry at times came up with good numbers but players like Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris did not take much responsibility.
Ben Simmons has been far from a player who won Rookie of the Year in 2018. He has not looked confident and hence he has not taken enough shots. For the last four matches in the series, he has scored zero points in 4th quarters.
He has missed a ton of free throws. Piling everything up he has been highly underwhelming as the Sixers considered him to be the second best player in their roster.
“If he was in my locker room, I’d knock his ass out”: Shaquille O’Neal on Ben Simmons
Overall the Australian native did not turn up in this series against the Atlanta Hawks. Whenever he was on the line he looked like he would miss free throws.
Stats emerge that he has missed more free throws in the playoffs than Steve Nash has in his whole career. He was shooting only 34% from the line in these two rounds of playoffs.
People took notice of his performance and the social media went berserk. There was a lot of slanders and even Shaquille O’Neal could not resist criticizing him. Shaq on TNT was quick to point out how it does not take anyone seven games to realize that they aren’t playing well.
He felt Simmons could have been more aggressive as he was not getting double teamed. To finish up his statement, Shaq said, “If he was in my locker room, I’d knock his ass out.”
After a gruelling encounter against the Sixers, the Hawks will now take on the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks have looked great as they knocked out the Nets to reach the Conference finals. So it promises to be another intense encounter between two quality teams.
