Rotation benefiting from a Shake up

PHILADELPHIA » Just before the 76ers would play the Los Angeles Lakers in one of those January games the NBA and its TV hucksters validate as extra meaningful, a spray of lineup sheets would come rolling off the Wells Fargo Center printer and be circulated to the press.

The instant reaction: What?

The next one: Who?

That was followed by why, huh, wow, and neversaw-that-coming. Yet, it was true. Shake Milton, who had never started an NBA game, had only played in 34 in his two-year career, and whose professional path seemed pointed only toward the state of tax-free shopping, would replace the injured Josh Richardson in the lineup.

That gym that always talks to Brett Brown? That time, it was whispering. “There is a sense of poise and inner peace,” Brown would explain. “He plays at a non-rattled level. He really doesn’t get rattled. He doesn’t get shaken up.”

In a season of rattling noises and lost poise, a call for calm was long overdue. When Milton contributed seven points, three assists and nine rebounds to a 108-91 victory of a certain gravity, there was only one alternative: Let that peace train roll. So challenged by injuries to piece together lineups, Brown would start Milton for the next seven games and 11 of the next 15. That would include the last three, in which Milton dropped 20 points on Cleveland, 19 on the Knicks and, with the basketball universe watching again Sunday on ABC, 39 in the Staples Center against the Clippers. That was from a guard who scored only 87 points as a rookie last season.

“What a fantastic story of late,”

Brown said. “It’s getting to the stage where the unique performances, performances that catch your eye, have become more and more frequent.”

It has been a gripping tale. But more, there was a three-word phrase in that comment from Brown that said plenty: Catch your eye. For a franchise that for too long had been kidnapped by draftnik-driven lists and obsessions with rotisserie-leaguestyle acquisitions, it’s growing likely that the Sixers will be led to safety by a second-round draft choice who is much better than the know-it-alls projected.

“He’s becoming consistently reliable,” Brown said, “in a lot of things.”

One of those things: Shooting. More specifically, three-point shooting. After going 14-for-20, including 7-for-9 from distance against the Clips, Milton is shooting 52.9 percent from the field and 46.6 percent from behind the arc this season. Including last season, he has been a 50.8-percent NBA shooter, and has shot three-pointers with 41.7-percent accuracy. Yeah. That’s where the story is going. That’s where it had to go.

No, it isn’t going to such an extreme that Milton, not Ben Simmons, must be the regular point guard. Simmons is too good a defender, defensive rebounder, passer, scorer, leaper and distributor to keep out of any NBA lineup. But, at long last, Brown has found a reasonable supplement to Simmons, whose shooting limitations will be problematic once playoff-level defenses wall off the lane. When that happens, and it will, Milton will make it easier for Brown to shift Simmons to the frontcourt.

All season, Brown has been in search of a second lead-guard option. The original plan was Trey Burke, although he never lasts very long with any franchise and couldn’t make it through a full year with the Sixers. Raul Neto had his chances, but proved to inconsistent. Why the Sixers were so negligent in just allowing the brilliant T.J. McConnell to flee to Indiana is something only they know. But if they held any suspicion that Milton, a 2018 find in a draft-night exchange of secondround options with Dallas, was the answer, waiting until the last week of January was an odd way to show it. Sometimes, though, crisis yields surprise answers. When Richardson was injured for a while, and then when Simmons pinched a nerve in his lower back, the opportunity was right for Milton.

“He’s deceptively long and I think he’s improved tremendously defensively,” Brown said. “The statistics, we’re all going to see. But defensively, watch him sit in a stance and watch him follow a game plan.”

Typically, Brown will use March to slim is rotation to nine players. Ever mindful of NBA egos, he does not do that without giving every player some opportunities. It’s his own version of bracketology, with the players winning their way onto the next line.

“If everybody is looking for a tournament, Shake is winning it,” Brown said. “He’s the starting point guard.”

He meant Milton will start as long as Simmons is injured. If that gym keeps talking, as Brown says, it eventually will say that Richardson and Simmons must be Brown’s backcourt. But Burke is gone and Neto has been shuffled to a deep-bench role and Richardson is better utilized on the wing and Alec Burks is best off the bench for instant offense. So by Sunday, there was Milton on national TV, defending at a high level, smoothly maneuvering through traffic, running the offense and consistently depositing three-point shots.

Not that the Sixers needed the stress, but if the worst thing that comes out of the Simmons injury is the emergence of Malik Benjamin Milton, then the option of a two-Ben backcourt has some appeal.

“It’s definitely just a process,” said Milton, who may have selected less irritating phrasing, given the last seven years. “I’m still learning a lot. So every game I feel like I’m able to take away something new and learn from it.”

As Fred Shero once famously said after starting Bobby Taylor over Bernie Parent for the first time in about 50 games, it’s his turn. At a time when the Sixers needed nothing less, Shake Milton is making it count.