How Jabari Walker’s imagination prepared him to seize the moment against the Bucks

Philadelphia — When Jabari Walker takes the court for the Sixers, it's not always at a time when the Sixers have a game.

Some days, his game comes the day after the Sixers add one to the win or loss column.

It's how he stays ready for his next opportunity, a tough task when you're out of the rotation for any length of time.

Walker relies on his imagination to prepare himself in those hours of unseen work.

"I imagine those shots going in before they went in, so I think just having a good imagination and it makes it seem like you've already lived the night through. And everything is just coming to fruition," Walker explained after Tuesday's victory over the Washington Wizards.

Walker did not play in Sunday's loss to the Atlanta Hawks. While the team had an off-day, he and rookie Johnie Broome worked out together on Monday.

"It was him setting the pick and then rolling and then I'm in the corner. I shoot, and then we're putting so much importance on one shot. So I'll shoot and then we'll do something else and then we'll come back to that. That corner three. So it wasn't just rapid fire, rapid fire," Broome explained.

It's how they use the practice gym to simulate a game setting.

"Yesterday was more so, 'Alright, you're going to get one of these. You're going to get one of these. This is the one. This is the one. And just having that communication from our shooting coaches and things like that, there's been importance on 'OK, you're not going to get that many of them'."

Walker has carried that mentality through the week. He had 10 points and 12 rebounds in 24 minutes in Tuesday's blowout win over the Wizards.

He logged seven points and five rebounds in 12 minutes on Thursday, a win that narrowly avoided disaster against the Golden State Warriors.

Walker hit the Milwaukee Bucks up for 18 points in 18 minutes on Friday, Philadelphia's third win in a row.

Walker had been 3-for-17 from three — 18 percent — prior to this week.

He's shot 7-for-15 from distance — 46.7 percent — during the three-game winning streak.

Walker ran through how he talks to himself as he goes through these simulations. "'OK, this is the one. Just make sure everything is solid. Your follow-through. Got that one. Then the next one, got that one'," he explained.

"It just builds confidence."

Get to the arena early enough, and you'll watch Walker do a drill in which he runs along the baseline, from corner to corner. He takes a catch-and-shoot three and then immediately runs back to the other corner to do the same thing. It goes on for minutes. Watching the ball rip through the nylon is hypnotizing.

"You got to get your feet set. You shoot one and then it lets you know, 'OK, that's the one'. And then the next one, you got to get your feet set all over again," Walker said of the drill.

"It's easier to get a rhythm when you're shooting five in a row. That's a different type of shot. It's unrealistic because you're not going to get that many in a row in a game. So just shooting one and then moving around just simulates the game a little bit better."

It had the intended effect in Walker's minutes against the Bucks. His four triples came from every spot on the court. Both corners, both wings. He punished the Bucks' ignorance, expanding Philadelphia's lead with one pair of set feet at a time.

Coming into the game, his season-high in scoring was 12 points. Walker beat that number in the second quarter, alone, scoring 13 of his 18 in just six minutes and 35 seconds.

His shooting was critical to the Sixers effectively hunting down the Bucks by halftime.

Walker doesn't concern himself with forcing plays when he's on the court. That's a mental trap he's aware of and actively tries to avoid.

"You got to trick your mind. You got to make yourself think you don't care as much as you do. That's what's worked for me," he told reporters on Tuesday.

It's freeing for Walker to not know what the rotation is going to be. It allows him to play without being boxed in to any one job. If he's playing well, Nurse will let him rock on. It's a healthier way for Walker to rationalize his role than obsessing over the illusion of control is.

"Honestly, just not attaching yourself to something too much. 'OK, this has to happen.' I don't want to attach myself to that. 'If this happens, then I'll be ready for this. I'll be ready if this happens.'," Walker said.

"Worst-case scenario, I'm a good teammate and I could say I was a good teammate and I had a good attitude going home. So I think my attitude's been right, I've been supportive through it all. I think that is a positive thing you could do even when you're not having a good game."

You can't panic if you trick your mind into thinking it doesn't care.

A shooting slump or a stretch of bad play gets shrugged off when an established name is going through it.

For players like Walker, it can spiral into crisis.

He and Broome are bonding by working through that fear.

"Honestly, we talk about that very often. Talking to him about that, it's kind of therapeutic for me because you never really leave those situations, they just look different for you in your life. So he's going through that right now, I'm still going through it in my own way," Walker said.

They talk about the randomness behind opportunity. They find the beauty in the unknown.

"The other game, we were losing by so much and he got thrown in and played I don't know how many minutes straight. But we had a conversation before that game and I told him, 'Stuff like that happens without even knowing'."

Knowing that moments like Friday night in Milwaukee are coming makes Walker train harder.

"It makes you wake up like, 'OK, this could be the day'," Walker said.

But when that day comes, it's about the team just as much as it is about the unlikely hero. There is no unlikely hero without the victory.

How do you divorce individual performance from team outcome instead of making it the story of the outcome?

"Well, I told him, I was like, 'Well, when you look at the shots you did take, were they good shots? How was your defense? How was your rebounding?"

Physicality gets its own section on the checklist.

"Did anybody get an offensive rebound over you? Did anybody just bully you and just lay the ball over you? Like, did you just give up these points?'," Walker explained.

And then, he delivered the assessment.

"I'm like, 'No, all the shots were within the flow of the offense. It was a little short. You haven't played that many minutes'."

Walker and Barlow, both very young in their own rights but still NBA veterans compared to Broom, have been there to help ease the rookie's mind through a rough start to his professional career.

"That's part of everybody's process," said Walker.

"And it's even more of a mental game than it is physical sometimes."