Anfernee Simons’ first month or so as a Boston Celtics was… well, weird. It was clear that the former Portland Trail Blazers guard struggled to adjust to his new, smaller role with Boston.
Coming off the bench and having the ball in his hands less took Simons some getting used to.
In fairness, he’s still been a work in progress, but there are signs of improvement.
Anfernee Simons is starting to shine
Tuesday’s win over the Utah Jazz featured a quiet 20-point performance from the 26-year-old. This is 100 percent a “firing from the hip” type of take, but it feels like when a player has a quiet scoring night like that, they’re doing something right. As a spectator, you don’t notice how much they need the ball, or how many shots they’re taking. You just look at the box score, and go, “wow!”
Earlier in the season, there’d be so many times where the ball stopped once it hit Simons’ hands. He’d hijack the possession as he looked for a way to impact the offense in his limited opportunities. That seems to happen less and less now. Simons deserves credit for the positive trend, as does Boston’s coaching staff.
There’s been a clear initiative to run actions to get him the ball in spots where he can succeed. Whether that means getting him going downhill off of a handoff, or running him through some off-ball screens to create catch-and-shoot opportunities.
The catch-and-shoot, in particular, is one of Simons’ greatest strengths. He’s drilled 45 percent of his attempts from distance off the catch this year. Optimizing the former Slam Dunk Champion on offense has seemingly allowed him to play more passively, too. Instead of the ball stopping when it hits his hands, he’ll read the defense and find open teammates when that’s the right play.
Simons is starting to hold his own defensively
Not only has he shown more of a willingness to make the extra pass, but he’s improving as a defender as well.
“I thought Ant was great tonight on both ends of the floor,” Joe Mazzulla praised postgame. “I thought he had some great possessions on Keyonte George in the first half. Obviously, everyone will see the scoring, but I thought his physicality and his attention to detail on defense was great. When you get that version of him, it makes us a different team.”
Now, let me preface this by saying it should be taken with an extreme grain of salt. But, Simons’ defensive rating of 106.9 has been the third-best on the team over the past ten games. Advanced stats like this can be tricky because sometimes garbage time will inflate the numbers, or a player will benefit from some of the strong lineups they feature in.
Nonetheless, it shows that the Celtics can still defend at a respectable level with him on the floor -- something that many feared couldn’t happen after watching him play his first few weeks in Boston.
In reality, it was always going to take a little bit of time for Simons to get comfortable in his new home -- on both ends of the floor. Let’s not forget that he told reporters that he’d never trained defensive playmaking during his time in Portland. He’s undoubtedly had to learn quite a bit about defense in these first three months.
Now that he’s processing things a bit quicker, he's looking more and more like a player who can help the Celtics win games, rather than one they'd trade to aid their financial goals.