Injury Report: Washington Wizards vs. Brooklyn Nets
The Brooklyn Nets have listed Ben Simmons (left knee soreness) and Yuta Watanabe (right hamstring strain) out against the Washington Wizards.
Simmons, who suffered the injury in the second quarter of Brooklyn's win over the Orlando Magic on Monday night, is day-to-day with his knee soreness. After the game, Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn pinpointed the accumulation of games and Simmons' overall load in Brooklyn's heavy stretch of games as the catalyst to the knee soreness returning. The Nets swingman missed five total games due to knee soreness earlier in the month.
"I think more than anything, the accumulation of games," said Vaughn postgame. "He hasn't had this amount of accumulation of games over a period in a long time. I talked to the performance team about that. We were warned about it a little bit as these games add up. His cumulative load begins to add up. It's really stretching him sometimes. The amount of games we had with the minutes that he's played was pretty high going into tonight's game."
Watanabe will end up missing his sixth-straight game with a right hamstring strain. The team reimaged the wing's hamstring on Monday but at the time of Vaughn's update, the results were not received. The head coach expressed optimism that Watanabe would be available to return later in the week on Sunday.
"He's still having some awareness in that hamstring," said Vaughn on Watanabe. "We will get him reimaged and see what it looks like compared to his last image, but he will not be available Wednesday. We'll check back and see what it looks like from there."
T.J. Warren (left foot - injury recovery) remains out for the Nets. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the wing is expected to make his season debut against the Toronto Raptors on Dec. 2. Two-way guard, David Duke Jr. is questionable to play with a non-COVID illness.
The Wizards will be without Rui Hachimura (right ankle soreness) and Delon Wright (right hamstring strain). Washington sent Johnny Davis, Vernon Carey Jr., Devon Dotson, and Isaiah Todd on assignment in the G League.
The Eastern Conference matchup is slated to tip at 7:30 p.m. ET.
