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He’s been called a Swiss Army Knife. He’s been dubbed Mr. Do Something. And, following a 118-106 win where he did a little bit of everything, De’Anthony Melton was referred to as freaky. That’s right: let’s get freaky, Jalen Hurts style.
Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers was answering a question about Melton’s passing skills on Friday night when he dropped the word “freaky” to describe the veteran guard. Rivers needed extra minutes out of Melton after Tobias Harris was ruled out with a back injury minutes before tip-off against Golden State. And he got more than he bargained for.
“I mean he’s just freaky, he really is, long arms, we put him at the elbow a couple times tonight,” Rivers said. “Just every time you lose a guy, another scorer like Tobias and a guy who is your third ball-handler at times, it really hurts your offense. So, we did something with De’Anthony that – a couple ones on the high split action – we really haven’t done that with him, and he was pretty good at it.”
Melton nearly recorded a triple-double: 17 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, plus 2 steals for good measure. He was fantastic and the Sixers needed him to be with Harris missing in action, along with Furkan Korkmaz who picked up a non-COVID illness. Melton saw 38 minutes versus the short-handed Warriors, often paired for long stretches in the backcourt alongside Shake Milton.
“That’s what he does for us, and we got the late scratch with Tobias,” Rivers said. “Literally as late as you can get a scratch, and so we knew we had to scramble. For him and Shake to play the amount of minutes they did, I think they played the entire third quarter, that’s not a rotation you ever want but we didn’t have a lot of options.”
Jordan Poole Hypes Up De’Anthony Melton
Warriors guard Jordan Poole scored a team-high 29 points in a losing effort as he tried to pick up the offensive load for a team playing without Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Andrew Wiggins. It was a slow slog for the boys in blue and gold. And a big reason why they couldn’t get anything going was Melton. He was all over the place.
“He’s a good defender,” Poole said. “He’s a good player, you know we were talking all game, competitive player. It’s always a challenge when you match up with a guy like that and you have to find ways to get better.”
Melton and Poole aren’t strangers. They matched up in last year’s Western Conference semifinals, with Poole’s Warriors beating Melton’s Grizzlies in six games.
“He’s been playing really good this season,” Poole said. “Especially over there with the guys they have. He’s taking advantage of the opportunity he has, he has more minutes, and he’s a really good player.”
Rivers Rolls Out 3-Guard Lineup, with James Harden
Rivers mixed up his lineups a lot on Friday night and lengthened the bench to a 9-player rotation. He went to a 3-guard look in the second half, one that included Melton, Milton, and James Harden all on the court at the same time. Rivers admitted he was experimenting out of necessity, although it could have been a test run for what to do once Tyrese Maxey returns from his foot fracture.
“I mean, when Tyrese is back there is a lot of lineups we can experiment with,” Rivers said, “and now we’re doing out of necessity and it’s good. We also like that lineup with Matisse [Thybulle] at the 4, if teams want to accommodate us and go small, that’s a good lineup for us.”
Thybulle provided steady defense as usual against Golden State, especially when Donte DiVincenzo got off to a blazing hot start. Problem was, the veteran wing couldn’t find his shot and finished with 3 points on 1-of-3 shooting.
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