Rivers has options to replace Green

From time to time in a rushed NBA season, Doc Rivers would be pulled into conversation about the possibility of a starting lineup change.

“I’d recommend,” he’d say, “you look at our record when that team starts.”

It was a solid argument, spilled by a coach who knew he had the winning hand. Who could argue a starting unit that would win 27 of 32 regular-season games? Piece-for-piece, skill-for-skill, it typically functioned as designed, a stretchfive supplemented by a splendid playmaker, a reliable scorer and two veteran shooters.

The Brooklyn Nets would have the better rotisserie team, but they would rely on isolation plays and individual greatness. The Sixers had a starting unit that worked – as a good group of offensive linemen invariably will recite – like five fingers in a glove.

They won’t have that for a while. They may not have that again this season. That’s because Danny Green was last seen walking around Atlanta in a therapeutic boot, the initial solution to the calf strain he’d endured during Game 3 of an Eastern Conference semifinal playoff series. One day and one MRI session later, Green was declared unavailable for a Monday night Game 4 and for another two weeks. At least.

“Next man up,” Rivers had said. “We’ve done it all year.”

Credit Rivers for his on-the-fly adjustment amid his rationalization that someone else would nicely fit in with Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris, Seth Curry and Ben Simmons.

Since the Sixers’ coach rarely announces until minutes before a game whether Embiid will play or be load-managed, he was typically evasive after a Sunday practice. These, though, are his options, from best to worst:

• Furkan Korkmaz: Even if the 6-7 wing didn’t score 14 points in 27 minutes of a 127-111 Game 3 victory, he would have been the most reasonable solution. His skill collection is similar to those of a 33-year-old Green, who once was a high-level defender but is no longer capable against better NBA scorers.

Green is a better shooter than Korkmaz, or at least he had been through his career, but he was struggling from distance against the Hawks anyway.

Rivers could plug-and-play Korkmaz without radically disrupting his second unit, which he could replenish with veteran Mike Scott.

• George Hill: When the Sixers plainly pursued Kyle Lowry at the trade deadline, it was an indication that they were not as married to the starting lineup as Rivers’ coachspeak would make it seem. When Lowry proved unavailable, the Sixers acquired Hill, another veteran, as a hedge against just this kind of emergency.

Hill has 135 games of NBA postsesaon experience and plays with nononsense professionalism. While he has admitted to having had difficulty meshing into Rivers’ second unit, at 35, his skills are best suited anyway to complement better players.

Unlike Korkmaz, who can tumble into inconsistency any inconvenient time, Hill would seamlessly add reliability to a unit that is best left to low-risk tinkering.

• Matisse Thybulle: It was notable that when Green was injured early Friday, Rivers instinctively turned to the long second-year guard. Since it was only four minutes into the game, it was almost a polygraph revelation of the coach’s preferred solution.

Against the Hawks, who have no answer for Embiid, Thybulle would work with the starting group, as his legendary defensive gifts allow him to dart out on shooters, thus suppressing the danger of Trae Young’s drive-and-kick stylings. But if Rivers wants to use whatever is left of Round 2 to prepare for the Final Four, then he has to know that starting two non-shooters in Thybulle and Simmons would put too much pressure on Harris to help Embiid and Curry to outscore Brooklyn’s All-Star starting group.

• Shake Milton: It would be a longshot possibility, but a low-risk one, for it would allow Rivers to maintain the option of using Korkmaz, Hill, Thybulle, Dwight Howard and Tyrese Maxey as a hockey-shift-style second unit.

Rivers, though, has broken from that habit in the postseason, regularly making certain that at least one starter, usually Harris, is rested early enough to jump in and stabilize the understudies.

Milton, though, has worked hard to recover his shooting touch, and had 14 points in 14 critical fourthquarter Game 2 minutes. If the idea is to replace a shooter with a shooter, Milton could work.

• Tyrese Maxey: While the fans would be delighted, and while he is destined to become a high-level NBA contributor, he is just a touch under-polished at age 20 to replace Green at a time in the postsesaon when one rookie misjudgment could be the difference in a game, a series or a season.

• Mike Scott: Like Milton, he could join the starting unit without causing a single rotation ripple. And Rivers often has used him as a starting center when Embiid was unavailable. Scott, though, is too sloppy an offensive player at this point in his career to trust as a starter on a team 10 victories from a world championship.

Green’s loss to the Sixers is meaningful. But it is not disastrous. The Sixers were built to give the head coach options.

If Rivers picks the right one, the winning will continue.