Simmons stoically absorbed the wrath of …

Simmons stoically absorbed the wrath of Boyle — his favorite coach of all time, he says — then followed his own mantra: learn from it, put it away and move on, same as he did following that gutting elimination by the Raptors last May. His inner circle knows how much that playoff loss wounded him, but how Simmons feels in those moments is not for public consumption. “I don’t like to express myself too much in front of everyone else,” Simmons says, “because then that lets you know how I feel.”