{"id":641303,"date":"2026-03-05T16:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T16:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/641303\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T16:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T16:53:13","slug":"jabari-walker-stepped-up-for-the-sixers-in-their-win-over-the-utah-jazz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/641303\/","title":{"rendered":"Jabari Walker stepped up for the Sixers in their win over the Utah Jazz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the lone bright spot in the 76ers\u2019 blowout loss Tuesday to the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> was Jabari Walker, who entered the game in garbage time and scored 20 points in 19 minutes on 7-for-10 shooting.<\/p>\n

Walker later told reporters that he\u2019d \u201crather not sleep and just get back out there right now.\u201d Walker woke up feeling good Wednesday morning, and he even picked up a new car after spending most of February Ubering around Philly.<\/p>\n

That blissful state was threatened for a brief moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI scratched it,\u201d Walker said. \u201cI talked to somebody coming in, I told them the story, they\u2019re like, it\u2019s going to get better for you today. I was like, \u2018Alright, OK, I\u2019m in my zone right now. I\u2019m in basketball world. Whatever happened before stays out.\u2019 So when I saw the first two [shots] go in, I was like, \u2018Okay, alright. This is a whole new world. I\u2019ve got a chance to redeem myself.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: The Sixers are \u2018living with where we\u2019re at\u2019 after close win over the lowly Jazz, but the road gets tougher<\/a><\/p>\n

Redeem himself he did. Walker scored 22 points on 7-of-12 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds in the Sixers\u2019 106-102 win over the Utah Jazz<\/a>. Walker\u2019s final two free throws secured the game for the Sixers in the dying seconds of the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

Walker, who started the season on a two-way contract, exhausted his 50 games of eligibility just before the All-Star break, keeping him out of four games before the team converted his contract to a two-year standard deal<\/a> on Feb. 16.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been in and out of the lineup, and seen his minutes fluctuate as the Sixers vacillate between different levels of health. VJ Edgecombe<\/a> was added to the injury report Wednesday<\/a> with a back bruise, leaving the Sixers down four starters. Nick Nurse<\/a> said pregame that they were going to need to get a lot more from guys further down the bench. <\/p>\n

Walker made his first seven shots, including two quick threes in the first quarter to kick it off, providing critical energy off the bench in addition to his usual effectiveness on the boards.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople that really know me, I\u2019m actually kind of crazy,\u201d Walker said. \u201cI talk a lot, and something\u2019s really wrong with me, but I get a chance to let it out on the court.\u201d <\/p>\n

Nurse said that in practices and shootarounds, the coaching staff has been working to give Walker as much positive feedback as possible to try and get him to be more aggressive with his shot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been trying to get him to play like that, because he\u2019s a really good shooter,\u201d Nurse said. \u201cYou just have to get used to the NBA feel and having enough [confidence] to pull the trigger on them. Noticeably better in his last few games. He\u2019s just running the floor, ball comes to him and he\u2019s open, and he just, not much hesitation on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: \u2018No resistance.\u2019 \u2018Soft.\u2019 Tyrese Maxey and Nick Nurse explain the Sixers\u2019 record-breaking blowout losses<\/a><\/p>\n

That support from Nurse has been there since day one, even before Walker felt like he\u2019d earned it. \u201cHim being vocal like that makes nights like this happen,\u201d Walker said. <\/p>\n

The injury status of Edgecombe and Joel Embiid<\/a> is uncertain and Paul George<\/a> doesn\u2019t return from a 25-game suspension for banned substances until the end of the month. With so much in flux, the Sixers don\u2019t quite know what the best version of their lineup is, or what their rotation will look like during a potential playoff run. <\/p>\n

In the interim, games like Wednesday\u2019s win will provide critical opportunities for bench players like Walker to show what they can do in an expanded role. Walker said he thought his scoring likely masked some improvements he needed to make defensively, but he believes there\u2019s a role on this team for him even when the team is healthy. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf my minutes have to go down, I\u2019ll take it,\u201d Walker said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I signed up for. That\u2019s the role I knew I was getting into. We have great, great players, we\u2019ve got Hall of Famers that have to come back, so somebody has to take those minutes, and these are guys that get paid to do so. My job is to fill in and do exactly what I\u2019m doing while they\u2019re out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps the lone bright spot in the 76ers\u2019 blowout loss Tuesday to the San Antonio Spurs was Jabari…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,6,969,474,4075,4074,83455,534],"class_list":["post-641303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio-spurs","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sanantonio","tag-sanantoniospurs","tag-sixers-jabari-walker-jazz-spurs-joel-embiid-vj-edgecombe-injury","tag-spurs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116177613954598689","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}