The Philadelphia 76ers officially debuted their new starting lineup on Saturday night as they took on the Indiana Pacers in their official restart opener in Orlando. The results were disastrous as they allowed T.J. Warren to score a career-high 53 points in a 127-121 loss.
Shake Milton drew the ire of teammate Joel Embiid after an initial struggle to begin the game. The two of them had a heated exchange on the bench at the end of the first quarter–which Embiid said was “nothing”–but it was an overall tough night for the young man out of SMU.
His final stat line was zero points on 0-for-1 shooting with three assists and three turnovers and five fouls. He had trouble dealing with Indiana’s pressure and that’s what stood out for him.
“I thought he struggled tonight. I thought he got sped up in his mind,” said coach Brett Brown. “He got scored on initially pretty quickly and he had a discussion about pick-and-roll defense, he and Jo about what direction the screen was coming. I thought that he chased, for the most part, all game. I think it was born out of frustration, I think that his foul trouble didn’t help him stay in a game and find a rhythm, but I thought tonight Shake struggled.”
The big key to remember is that Milton is just 23-years old. Sure, he did get rattled by the physical Pacers defense a bit, but now is the time to keep his head high and to keep moving forward. He has to be able to learn from this.
“Stay confident,” said Tobias Harris. “We all have confidence in Shake. It’s one game, the first official game really, running the unit. He’s a great player. He’s going to continue to get better game after game, but the biggest thing is to hold his confidence up all the way throughout and I’ll reaffirm on that and keep him right.”
On top of that, this was the first official game with a brand new starting lineup. A lot of the kinks need to be continued to work out. This is only the first of eight games and this is where Milton will learn and move forward as a player and the Sixers will grow as a group.
“It’s the first game for a new starting lineup,” added Embiid. “We have seven more games to try and find the balance and to use it better and play together. I’m sure we’re going to do that. I don’t think there’s any problems. I’m going to do everything I can to make it happen and being down low to try and help my teammates. I think we just need to find a rhythm.”
Philadelphia will next face the San Antonio Spurs on Monday. [lawrence-related id=35982,35964,35959]