Nets trying to figure out Ben Simmons usage without KD, Kyrie

NEW YORK — After Brooklyn Nets forward Ben Simmons played just 13 minutes — his second-lowest minutes total of the season — off the bench in Monday's 124-106 loss to the crosstown rival New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, coach Jacque Vaughn admitted it will be challenging to find ways to get Simmons more minutes without the star power of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to draw defenses away from him.

«It's going to be some work that we have to do,» Vaughn said. «Because you just take a look at what the lineups could potentially look like. You put another big next to Ben, then you got to figure out what the spacing is around him. Then if you put another playmaker next to him, then you got to figure out what Ben looks like without the basketball. Then if you go small with Ben, then you have to figure out can you rebound enough with him?

»So, the challenges are ahead of us. We'll look them head on. We'll figure it out. We have the personnel to figure it out. Whether it is me mixing and matching throughout different pieces of the game, and allowing him to have a group and run with a group, that part we'll figure out, but you see the challenges that lie ahead."

Simmons, who came to Brooklyn just over a year ago as part of the trade that sent James Harden to Philadelphia, played 16 minutes in Saturday's loss to the 76ers — the first game the Nets had their full complement of players after sending Irving to the Dallas Mavericks and Durant to the Phoenix Suns ahead of Thursday's trade deadline — before the 13 minutes he played Monday night against the Knicks.

In both games, he sat for the final several minutes of the fourth quarter — as he did in his first game against former co-star Joel Embiid last month in Philadelphia.