Milton fits new role well for ‘freeflowing’ 76ers

Out of patience and low on options, his job security leaking and the Sixers trending ordinary, a strange season having advanced to surreal, Brett Brown last season would make a defining lineup decision.

Shake Milton, who had won games and status with his lateseason shooting and floor presence, would be his starting point guard. That idea didn’t play out well. Milton sagged, the Sixers were playoff failures, Brown lost his job.

By the time Doc Rivers could reconvene the team a couple of months later, there were new shooters, different hopes, a reborn commitment to Ben Simmons with the ball and a quiet push of Milton back to the bench.

That move, unlike the last one, has worked.

“I just wanted to do what was best for the team,” Milton said Saturday after an early walk-through practice in Memphis. “It doesn’t matter if I start or not. It’s an opportunity thing.”

Milton had played in nine games before Saturday, started one, missing three due to coronavirus protocols. From the settling influence of Rivers, to a soft early schedule, to the Miami Heat losing two games without the bulk of its stars last week at the Wells Fargo Center, there were reasons the Sixers were 8-4.

Undeniably, Milton was on that list.

Providing the instant-offense surge that helped lift him from a roster afterthought to a postseason starter last season, Milton had scored in double figures in his last six games. That included Thursday, when he went for 31 in 27 minutes against Miami, shooting 11-for-15, 3-for-4 from distance.

Even with Seth Curry continuing to recover from a COVID bout and remaining in a required quarantine, Milton was not used as a starter. Instead, Rivers went with rookie Tyrese Maxey, mixing Milton into the backup flow.

For whatever reason, some players are just better suited to roll into a game in progress. Milton is showing every indication that he is that kind of teammate, dominating against the Heat after his three-game protocol hiatus.

“He played great,” Tobias Harris said, after the 125108 victory over Miami. “He just got right into it. He got out there and pushed us.”

So comfortable was Milton in his barrage against the Heat, Harris kiddingly wondered just how inactive he really was during his absence.

“I was trying to figure out if he had a gym in his place, because he was out there hooping,” Harris said. “It was like he never missed a beat.”

Though early, indications are the Sixers are better in many ways than the team rubbed out of the last postseason by Boston in four. One is the depth of perimeter skill. Rivers’ preference is to surround Simmons and Joel Embiid with shooters Curry, Harris and Danny Green. But Maxey has been a better shooter than he showed in his one season at Kentucky.

Mike Scott can be streaky. Rookie Isaiah Joe has shown the shooting excellence that defined him at the University of Arkansas. Dakota Mathias, on a twoway contract, has enough of a reputation as a distance threat to pull defenders out to the arc. And Milton, who scored 39 against Rivers’ Clippers last season to prove he would no longer be caught in any G-League shuffle, was shooting 49.5 percent overall and 31.8 percent from the arc Saturday.

“Any time you start seeing the ball go in, you start feeling good, you start feeling confident,” Milton said. “And you just want to keep it going, especially when you have so many teammates around you who are so unselfish.”

Among the keys to the Sixers’ new commitment to finding open shooters is that they are deeper in ballhandling excellence than last season. That has enabled penetration, kicks and the chances for players, Milton included, to create their own shots.

All of that has made Rivers’ team a handful to defend.

“We are more free-flowing,” Milton said. “We have a lot of guys who are unselfish. Everybody is unselfish. And it’s about getting the best shot for the team, whatever that will be. When you have guys with that mentality and the ball moves like that, it’s not onedimensional. It is harder to guard.”

Milton came to the Sixers from SMU on Draft Day of 2018 as a second-round pick through Dallas. He played 20 games as a rookie, then appeared in just 12 of the first 45 games last season. But there were some injuries, and they opened opportunities. And suddenly, if not shockingly, Milton began to produce, winning a chance to start in the final 19 games of the season, playoffs included.

Rivers, though, has had other ideas.

“Shake can be a starter or a sixth man,” Rivers has said. “He is going to be a heck of a basketball player. He really is. You can just see it all over him.”

And, recently at least, all over the boxscore, as he’d scored 31, 24, 19, 10, 18 and 14 points in his six most recent games.

“If Coach asked me to start, I wouldn’t have a problem with it,” Milton said. “And if he asks me to come off the bench, I am going to continue to do what I have been doing.”

For the 76ers, that has been plenty.