Simmons injures back in practice, uncertain for Milwaukee
to have the veteran forward on the floor late in games.
• • • Even with 27 regularseason games to play, Brown made it official Thursday: He will use a nine-man rotation in the postseason. Which nine? That’s still in play, though Brown is more hesitant this season to declare the competition for playing time as mini-tournaments.
“I’m trying to avoid that word,” he said. “But the flavor of it is true. I am not coming out of the All-Star break and anointing, ‘Here it is.’ I have a heavy idea what it could be, based on a bunch of different things. But it is going to be over the next period of time, where it is competitive with those uncertain-type positions.
“Inevitably, I think I do grow to a nine-man rotation. And you’re going to start seeing that more in this final third of the season. But when you get down to, say, the last two spots, it has to be competitive, and it will be.”
While the Sixers have invested much playing time in Matisse Thybulle and have benefited from his length, his defense and his outside shooting, the rookie has not necessarily earned one of those nine postseason rotation slots yet.
The reason: The Process is over.
“I feel like I am out of the stage where I feel a huge responsibility to take bullets in exchange for development,” Brown said. “I think we are now at a stage in the final third of the season where you are going to have to play people who are going to win games.”
Thybulle entered the Nets game averaging 4.9 points while demonstrating a rare ability to block shots from multiple angles.
“I think we have done the hard yards,” Brown said. “He has improved his discipline defensively and his catch shot. So we have seen the growth of him. But we have 27 games left, and I see it the way I just said it. And I think I am seeing it the way it should be seen.”
• • •
The Nets were without Kyrie Irving, who will be lost for the remainder of the season following arthroscopic shoulder surgery.
“He should be back in plenty of time to work out this summer,” Nets general manager Sean Marks said. “And he should be ready for next season.”
Irving was averaging 27.4 points in 20 games in his first season with Brooklyn.