Rivers trying to keep rotation in balance

PHILADELPHIA » There are analytics for just about every basketball situation, numbers telling stories, equations leading to conclusions.

There is one decision, though, that only an NBA head coach can make. That one has to come from experience, from wisdom, and finally, from the gut.

Doc Rivers is nearing that either-or point, that moment when he will have to pick between what works in the moment and what will work later.

With 14 games remaining in the regular season after the Phoenix Suns visit Wednesday, Rivers soon must choose between winning games and resting players, all while beginning to shave his rotation to the postseason-customary nine players.

“They usually don’t go handin-hand, as we all know,” Rivers said. “Guys are sick, guys are injured and there’s not a lot you can do about it. That’s usually what happens. Some of it is a plan. Some of it is not. We clearly would like to have the best seed possible. But we want to be healthy at the same time.

“So it’s absolutely a balancing act.”

Taking their turns on that balance beam Wednesday were Ben Simmons (illness), Tobias Harris (knee) and Seth Curry (hip flexor). That left Rivers with a starting lineup of Joel Embiid, Matisse Thybulle, Furkan Korkmaz, Danny Green and Shake

Milton against the secondbest team in the Western Conference.

As deep as the Sixers have been this season in earning the top spot in the Eastern standings, Rivers’ eventual postseason work schedule is not likely to shock. Assuming full health, Rivers will supplement Embiid, Harris, Green, Simmons and Curry with George Hill, Dwight Howard, Milton and Thybulle. Veteran Mike Scott likely would nose out defensive liability Furkan Korkmaz as the emergency 10th option. Tyrese Maxey, 20, should be able to benefit from watching the tournament bench-side.

There are enough options, though, and Rivers earns $8 million a year. So he must use his lifetime in the game to draw a slightly different batting order. It can be tricky. Even as he prepared for the Suns, Rivers knew he would face the Bucks twice in Milwaukee in the next three days. His dilemma: Rest players more than usual Wednesday to be at full readiness for Milwaukee in a series with enormous Eastern implications, or be careful not to lose a home game against Monty Williams’ 41-16 Suns?

“I would like to win,” Rivers said, projecting an attitude missing around Wells Fargo Center not that long ago. “And when you get a chance to win, you take that win. I’m not saying we would win if we played everybody in one game or the other.

“I guess the way you look at it is that if you win (Thursday), you have a chance to take the season series against the Bucks. But if guys aren’t healthy, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Not only must players be free of twisted ankles, ouchy backs or jammed index fingers before the playoffs, they must also be in peak condition. The Sixers have been intensely protective of Hill since acquiring him at the trade deadline, and likely remain somewhat fearful that his thumb could get re-injured. Hill did some impressive things in his Sixers’ debut during a loss to Golden State Monday, but Rivers was reluctant to give the veteran a full shift.

Soon, those restrictions must be lifted.

“When you shut it down at this age, it’s very difficult to get it back going,” said Danny Green, 33. “But he’s very detailed and very specific when we’ve worked a couple times together.”

It’s been whispered around the Wells Fargo Center for weeks that the Sixers wanted Hill at full strength with 10 games remaining. He is on that course.

Not that it was unexpected that the Sixers and Nets would be in a season-long wrist-wrestle for the top seed in the East, but they have spent weeks within about a game of one another in the standings. And the Bucks have a massive opportunity to join that company in the next few days.

The Sixers, so special at home the past two seasons, cannot afford to play a potential seventh playoff game in Milwaukee and then another one in Brooklyn. If they do, though, it will be with a nine-man rotation. Thus, Rivers’ late-season challenges: Prepare that rotation? Order rest? Change nothing?

“At this point of the season, guys start looking at the playoffs,” he said. “They also start looking at their bodies. This has been a mentally tough year because of the (virus) testing and guys having to get up. We don’t usually talk about that. You’d rather have guys stay in bed and rest. But they’ve had to get up and drive to the facility and things like that.”

The pregame testing will continue. The intensity of the in-game tests will increase. And the Sixers are already at the point where they have to pass almost every one.