Getty De'Anthony Melton of the Philadelphia 76ers
During the Philadelphia 76ers game against the Miami Heat on April 6, De’Anthony Melton left the game with seven minutes and 26 seconds to go in the third quarter and never returned due to a calf injury. Melton was questionable before the game started.
De’Anthony Melton is out for the rest of the game with mild right calf tightness, per the Sixers. Melton had been questionable for this game.
After the game, Sixers head coach Doc Rivers provided an update on Melton during his postgame press conference, saying that the injury is nothing to be worried about.
“Just calf, it’s nothing serious,” Rivers said. “Again, right when it started bothering, we just took him out. It’s nothing serious.”
This season, Melton has been available for almost the entire season, having played in 77 of the Sixers’ 80 games thus far. Melton is doubtful for the Sixers’ game against the Atlanta Hawks on April 7, per Noah Levick of NBC Sports Philadelphia.
Sixers’ initial injury report for tonight:
Harden, Embiid, Maxey, Tucker out.
Melton doubtful, Harris and Springer questionable.
With the Sixers clinching the no. 3 seed, there’s no need for the Sixers to risk further injury to Melton, or any of their other rotation players for that matter, for any more regular season games.
De’Anthony Melton Challenges Sixers
After the Sixers suffered a 13-point loss to the Bucks on April 2, Melton challenged his teammates to play as a unit with the playoffs not too long from now.
“At this point, everything is as a team,” Melton said, per Ky Carlin of Sixers Wire. “So as a team, we just want to make sure we’re running our stuff, we’re getting the right stuff going on, we got discipline, and we’re just getting ready for the playoffs.”
Melton then elaborated on what it means to play as a team the right way.
“Just making sure we’re doing the right things,” Melton said. “Making sure we’re all together, our chemistry is there, and understanding how we want to win and what we want to give up and stuff like that. Understand that we all got each other’s back, too.”
Melton has 15 games of playoff experience under his belt from his time with the Memphis Grizzlies.
Rivers Defends Playing Starters Against Heat
Because the Sixers already had their playoff seed wrapped up, Rivers electing to play his starters against the Heat seemed like a questionable decision knowing that there were no stakes.
After the game, Rivers explained why he went with his starters against Miami.
“It’s a tough call,” he said, per Rich Hofmann of The Athletic. “I have a lot of coaching friends in the league and talked to a bunch of them about this (game). That’s how much I was concerned about it. It was unanimous to play, and I felt the other way, honestly. I just think human nature is just hard, you know? It just is.”
Rivers admitted he was unhappy with his decision in hindsight, though he knows nothing can be done to change it.
“I was more upset at me today because even though I heard everyone (saying), ‘Play, play, play,’ my mind said the exact opposite. Sometimes you got to go with it,” Rivers said. “We can’t get it back, so nothing you can do about it.”
Thankfully for the Sixers, none of their more important players like Joel Embiid, James Harden, and Tyrese Maxey, appeared to be hurt, and now they’re being rested as the playoffs are set to begin not too long from now.