Ben Simmons and his emerging Philadelphia 76ers have felt the might of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.
Simmons and the 76ers matched the experienced Warriors in the first half in Oakland on Saturday to raise expectations of an upset win and another triple double for the 21-year-old Australian.
The Warriors snuffed the prospect of both out early in the second-half and ran away with a 135-114 victory.
"It does seem like teams come after us early," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
"Everybody wants to knock us down and then it seems like things settle."
The 76ers trailed by just one point at halftime and the long, athletic Simmons was a handful for All-Stars Steph Curry and Kevin Durant.
The Warriors, winners of two of the last three NBA titles, ramped up their defence in the final two quarters, Simmons faded away and the Warriors' long range shooters dropped a barrage of three-pointers.
Warriors guard Nick Young came off the bench and hit three three-pointers.
Durant was the leading scorer with 29 points and Curry had 22.
Simmons fell two assists short of his eighth double-double in just 12 NBA regular season games with 13 points, eight assists and five rebounds.
The Warriors exposed Simmons' deficiencies as a shooter by hanging back and letting him have open looks.
The plan succeeded with the Australian missing 11 of his 17 field goal attempts.
Simmons had nine points, five assists and five rebounds in the first half, demonstrating how the Warriors shut him down in the final two quarters.
76ers coach Brett Brown pulled Simmons from the game midway through the final quarter.
The 208cm tall Simmons was given the job of guarding the 191cm Curry, but when the 76ers had the ball Warriors coach Steve Kerr had the 206cm Durant and last season's NBA defensive player of the year 201cm Draymond Green hounding the Australian.
Simmons had four turnovers.
The Warriors also stunted 76ers' centre Joel Embiid, who had just 12 points and seven rebounds and suffered with seven turnovers.
The 76ers had entered the game winning six of their last eight games and are in the middle of a west coast trip, with the next stop in Los Angeles for games against the Clippers and Andrew Bogut's Lakers.
