basketball

Picture Credit: NBA

The Wells Fargo Arena saw a return of their former Philadelphia 76ers star Ben Simmons as they greeted him with numerous ‘boos’ and snarky remarks. But unfortunately, for Sixers, they were blown out by the Brooklyn Nets. Kevin Durant scored 25 points along with his strike partner Kyrie Irving who also had 22 points. 

Similarly former Philly guard, Seth Curry guard also had 24 points. The 76ers immensely struggled as no else other than Joel Embiid played well. Embiid had 27 points with 12 rebounds. Whereas no other Sixers played scored over 20 points

Philadelphia-based sports journalist Eliot Shorr-Parks reported how Ben Simmons behaved in his return to Philadelphia. Parks talked about how he was constantly heckled by the fans with abusive language. He tweeted “Another ‘f*** Ben Simmons’ chant. Ben Simmons stands up from his seat while it is happening. He isn’t backing down at all tonight. Came out for warmups when he didn’t have to and isn’t hiding at all on the bench.”

Durant after the game had some choice words for the Philly fans and called them out for being quiet as their team lost. He said, "So they focused on the court tonight. It's hard for you to chant at Ben Simmons when you're losing by that much."

"It was very quiet towards the end. We ain't hear no more Ben Simmons chants from the Sixers fans," Durant said. "It was more Nets fans in here than anything."

He also talked about how Simmons is an integral part of their team and they will fight for him together. He said, "We look at Ben as our brother, so we knew that this was a hostile environment and we knew that he didn't have the opportunity to play, so we wanted to come out there and have [the 76ers fans'] focus on the court more so than just always focusing on him."

Nets guard Kyrie Irving also seconded the thought by saying, "It's not an individual thing for us. We all felt it. We're all there. "If you come at Ben, you come at us. If you come at anyone else on our team, you come at all of us. That's the mentality."