Jared Dudley spoke about how the Brooklyn Nets plan to attack Philadelphia 76ers superstars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
The Brooklyn Nets are gearing up for their first playoff series since the 2014-15 season. Jared Dudley is one of the few Nets with legitimate playoff experience.
In an interview on “Carlin, Maggie and Bart” on WFAN, Dudley discussed the Philadelphia 76ers, Joel Embiid, and Ben Simmons.
For Embiid, the Nets are looking to run him off the floor if humanly possible. The All-Star center is hobbled with a knee injury and his health is a bit of a question mark entering this series. As a result, Dudley says the Nets are looking to make him work.
“Keep it a fast-paced, high-intensity game where he’s having to go out there, guard the pick-and-roll, have to post up and hopefully wear him down,” Dudley said.. “We’re expecting this to be a long series. Because of that, you want him, by Game 5, Game 6 to be worn out by the pace and physicality that we bring throughout the course of 48 minutes throughout the series.”
Much like Embiid, Simmons is another All-Star who could make life difficult for the Nets. The point forward has a rare combination of size and skill that makes him difficult to stop in transition. His one fatal flaw is his inability to shoot from the outside. The Australian born player is 0-for-17 from three-point range in his career.
“We will leave him wide open until he proves in this league that he can make it,” Dudley said about letting Simmons shoot from the outside. “Right now he’s not even attempting it. So we know that he’s not going to be able to do that for the most part, so what he’s going to try to do is post up, get downhill. That’s where he’s been at his best. So we have to limit that.”
That’s a tried-and-true strategy to limiting Simmons’ impact. The Boston Celtics sagged off Simmons to a comical degree in the Eastern Conference Semifinals in 2018 and it worked like a charm.
