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Simmons praises Leonard's defense after 11-turnover night: 'He's a freak'

Mark Blinch / National Basketball Association / Getty

TORONTO - Through six games of his sophomore season, Philadelphia 76ers point guard Ben Simmons appeared to have remedied the turnover issues that plagued his rookie campaign. Then he ran into Kawhi Leonard.

With Leonard as his primary defender on Tuesday night in Toronto, Simmons fumbled and bumbled his way through the sloppiest game of his young career, turning the ball over an incredible 11 times in 34 minutes. The film is the stuff of pure Halloween terror, as Leonard was at least partially responsible for eight of those 11 turnovers, with all four of his steals on the night coming at Simmons' expense.

"He's a freak," Simmons said of Leonard's defense after a 129-112 loss to the Raptors in his first matchup against the two-time Defensive Player of the Year. "His hands are huge. He's got long arms. He's a great defender. One of those things where I learn from that and try to get better. Hopefully the next time I see him, it's gonna be a different story."

Simmons' head coach, who worked with Leonard during Kawhi's first two years in San Antonio, isn't surprised by the 27-year-old's early-season impact even after missing all but nine games last year.

"I'm really not. He's that good," Brett Brown told reporters postgame. "Like, he really is that good. It's great to see him playing basketball again."

After finishing with the league's worst turnover percentage last year (the 76ers coughed it up on 16.3 percent of their possessions) for the fourth time in five seasons under Brown, the Sixers entered Toronto with the fourth-best turnover rate through this season's opening two weeks. When the team left a few hours later, Philadelphia was 15th.

Simmons had also cut his individual turnover ratio by more than 22 percent compared to 2017-18 (albeit in a tiny sample size). He walked out of Scotiabank Arena with an even worse mark than last season.

"I hope it's a one-night blip," Brown said to theScore of his team's ugliest old habit rearing its head during the loss. "I definitely am concerned. I can't deny that. But I hope it's an outlier more than a consistent habit."

"I think (it was) a hybrid of a bunch of stuff," Brown said when asked whether Philadelphia's 23 turnovers were more about what the Raptors were doing defensively, or his team making mental mistakes. "I'll go back and we'll look at it."

If Brown and the Sixers want a snapshot of how things went wrong, they only need to glance at their first recorded offensive possession in Tuesday's game log.

It reads: Ben Simmons lost ball turnover (Kawhi Leonard steals).

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