Jabari Walker stepped up for the Sixers, filling in the gaps and securing a win over the Utah Jazz

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

Walker later told reporters that he’d “rather not sleep and just get back out there right now.” Walker woke up feeling good Wednesday morning, and he even picked up a new car after spending most of February Ubering around Philly.

That blissful state was threatened for a brief moment.

“I scratched it,” Walker said. “I talked to somebody coming in, I told them the story, they’re like, it’s going to get better for you today. I was like, ‘Alright, OK, I’m in my zone right now. I’m in basketball world. Whatever happened before stays out.’ So when I saw the first two [shots] go in, I was like, ‘Okay, alright. This is a whole new world. I’ve got a chance to redeem myself.’”

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Redeem himself he did. Walker scored 22 points on 7-of-12 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds in the Sixers’ 106-102 win over the Utah Jazz. Walker’s final two free throws secured the game for the Sixers in the dying seconds of the fourth quarter.

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 on Feb. 16.

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

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.

“People that really know me, I’m actually kind of crazy,” Walker said. “I talk a lot, and something’s really wrong with me, but I get a chance to let it out on the court.”

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.

“We’ve been trying to get him to play like that, because he’s a really good shooter,” Nurse said. “You 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’s just running the floor, ball comes to him and he’s open, and he just, not much hesitation on him.”

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That support from Nurse has been there since day one, even before Walker felt like he’d earned it. “Him being vocal like that makes nights like this happen,” Walker said.

The injury status of Edgecombe and Joel Embiid is uncertain and Paul George doesn’t return from a 25-game suspension for banned substances until the end of the month. With so much in flux, the Sixers don’t quite know what the best version of their lineup is, or what their rotation will look like during a potential playoff run.

In the interim, games like Wednesday’s 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’s a role on this team for him even when the team is healthy.

“If my minutes have to go down, I’ll take it,” Walker said. “That’s what I signed up for. That’s the role I knew I was getting into. We have great, great players, we’ve 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’m doing while they’re out.”