Simmons exits with sore knee

Ben Simmons was forced out of the Nets’ 109-102 win over Orlando on Monday night with left knee soreness and did not return.

The latest setback — checking out with 9:03 in the first half — is the third occasion Simmons has missed time with the same ailment already this season. But this one comes just as he was finding his stride for the first time as a Net.

NETS NOTES

“He had some left knee soreness, that same knee. Asked to be pulled out of the game,” said coach Jacque Vaughn, who didn’t anticipate any further imaging on the knee. “We’ll check him day by day, see how he responds with a little treatment, see what it looks like [Tuesday].

Vaughn pointed to “the accumulation of games” as a suspected key factor in Simmons’ soreness

“He hasn’t had this amount of accumulation of games over a period of a long time . ... We were warned about that just as these games start to add up. It’s really stretching him the amount of games we’ve just had, with the minutes he’s played.”

After missing last season with a bad back, among other causes, Simmons had a microdiscectomy procedure in May to repair a herniated L4 disc.

Simmons missed four consecutive games from Oct. 31 through Nov. 5 with swelling in his left knee. It also cost him the Nov. 13 loss at the Lakers.

To that point, Simmons had been averaging 5.2 points, 6.2 rebounds and 5.9 assists — all career-lows — and was a teamworst minus-43. But he’d looked like a new player since returning.

In the seven games coming into Monday night — five starts — he’d averaged 13.6 points, and his plus-29 was second on the Nets. His 7.6 boards, 6.1 assists and 1.6 steals were all teamhighs.

Simmons finished Monday scoreless with four boards and three assists in 11:24.

Seth Curry played in a backto-back for the first time all season. He finished with three points in 24:48.

After summer ankle surgery, he hadn’t played at all in the first two back-to-backs and in just one game of the next three.