Melton says defense should “figure itself out”

[GSW-PHX practice videos/transcripts]

It’s hard to be patient when the team is 13-14, but truth is, De’Anthony Melton just got back and he projects to be a future starter.

When guys in the NBA come back and are on minutes restrictions, they just come off the bench so they can close games and not have a large gap of minutes in between. Victor Wembanyama is going through that right now, even in NBA Cup semifinal and championship games.

Melton’s even had to give himself so space:

…just being aggressive, just understanding my game, but also I’ve been back for, what, three games now. So, still trying to figure out and still trying to give myself graces in terms of just sometimes you gonna have your highs, sometimes you gonna have your lows, but just like I said earlier, just staying levelheaded.

Per Steve Kerr (see previous article), Al Horford is now fully healthy and just needs to “stack days”, presumably where he is getting his conditioning back. Horford told Nick Friedell of ESPN and Sam Gordon of the SF Chronicle at morning shootaround that he’s about a week from returning.

By the way, we have more from Friedell’s report on our Discord server. Sign up for free at https://whop.com/letsgowarriors-discord-free

And that’s the thing about veteran teams, right? As I said in the previous article, there is extra emphasis on the being healthy. It’s the nature of the beast.

As for the point-of-attack defense, as Kerr said at practice, the Warriors will get the ball to Jimmy Butler more, so I would expect the pace to be not as hectic, at least when one Wardell Stephen Curry takes a break and Jimmy is the fulcrum.

Melton thinks it’s just a matter of time when the Dubs start to be more on a string:

Always we can keep the ball in front better and just rotations and just communication. Just make sure we talking out there. Sometimes you gonna get messed up on rotations, but as long as you communicate and talk it out, and I think we can just overall help each other out. And everything’s not gonna be perfect, but if we just keep adjusting and keep moving on the fly and just keep trusting each other, I think it’ll figure itself out.

I’ll be interested to see how that goes starting with a very potent Phoenix team.

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Below is the Melton and Quinten Post video with captions. Post talked about how he needs to be careful with his shot fakes, something else I’ll be looking forward to in the Phoenix games coming up.

00:00 How do you think the group is doing right now, given the highs and lows that you guys have experienced two months in?

00:17 DE’ANTHONY MELTON, PRACTICE, DAY BEFORE GSW-PHX: I feel like we doing pretty well. Some of these guys have been through stuff like this. I think that’s the whole point of having veteran leadership. Guys that been through it, they understand how the season go at the highs and the lows of it. We trying to just stay real level-headed and just keep pushing along.

00:37 Defensively guys not been at the same form you were during the road trip what. Do you guys need to get back to doing the next few games?

00:47 Always we can keep the ball in front better and just rotations and just communication. Just make sure we talking out there. Sometimes you gonna get messed up on rotations, but as long as you communicate and talk it out, and I think we can just overall help each other out. And everything’s not gonna be perfect, but if we just keep adjusting and keep moving on the fly and just keep trusting each other, I think it’ll figure itself out.

01:12 Right now you’re on a minutes’ restriction. How do you find rhythm when you’re-- you don’t-- you have a certain time limit on when you’re playing?

01:20 Yeah, one of those things, just sometimes it’s good to know exactly what you playing at least, you know what I mean? Because you can go in the game not knowing your overall minutes or your standard whatever it is, so knowing that I’m playing 20 minutes, given however long it is within that time, but just going out there and just being aggressive, just understanding my game, but also I’ve been back for, what, three games now. So, still trying to figure out and still trying to give myself graces in terms of just sometimes you gonna have your highs, sometimes you gonna have your lows, but just like I said earlier, just staying levelheaded, just keep focused on getting better.

02:04 Yes.

02:05 Thanks, Melt.

02:06 Thank you.

02:10 Mallevy (Leons)?

02:10 Mallevy.

02:10 Mallevy?

02:10 Mallevy.

02:11 I got close. There you go.

02:20 I guess, how’s Al Horford looked in practice? Steve said the sciatica is pretty much done, gone. How’s he looked in practice?

02:28 Let’s see, we had a very slight practice today, but he’s getting back to it. I see him working out after every practice, trying to get his footing under him. Obviously, we don’t play enough in practice, enough reps to really simulate a game, so he’s been doing everything on his own, putting in extra work with the coaches and, besides that, I feel like even just his presence at the games has still been very, very useful for the team, having that veteran leadership. So, no, he’s looking good and I assume he’ll be back soon.

03:03 Quinten, just with the ups and downs of this season early on, again, it’s early on, but how would you describe the mood right now, the vibe inside and outside the locker room?

03:13 I think the vibe is good. Obviously, we haven’t had the results that we have wanted, but I feel like our process has been right. We’ve been doing a lot of things that we harp on, just closing games, but last year we felt like every close game that we were in, after the trade I’m talking about, we were gonna win. And we did a lot of those and this year it hasn’t been the same, so have to figure that out, but with the experience we have, you would assume that we would, that we will figure that out in the next couple of games.

03:52 Steve committed to a starting lineup, the one you guys used last game. What sort of works well in that lineup and why is it the starting lineup at this point?

04:04 It’s the NBA, so we’ll see with injuries and hopefully everybody stays healthy. So we’ll see how long this is the starting lineup, but for now, I always like being on the court with Draymond. Obviously, we have some more size, it shifts him to the 4, it shifts Jimmy to the 3, and you still have that Draymond-Steph two-man game with me being able to space the floor a little bit and, defensively, we’re just bigger. And then you can always shift Draymond back to the 5 if the game needs that, so yeah, I feel like it’s been an effective starting unit, but for all our units, it’s all about the details to execute on and that’ll lead us to win some more games.

04:57 Those units that Steph isn’t in, that’s like where you guys have to make your money. What are some of the keys to, especially the offense, keep that going?

05:07 Steph isn’t in the game. That usually means that Jimmy is in the game, so it’s on the other four guys to find him and make life easy for us. And it’s always tough when your best-- when you know your franchise player isn’t on the court, but if we play hard on defense and we let Jimmy play make for us and everybody else does their jobs, then we should be fine in those minutes.

05:36 As far as what the starting lineup goes, how important do you think consistency with continuity is? Because obviously there’s been factors with injuries where you guys haven’t been able to get those consistent lineups. Do you just think that getting consistency, continuity will be good for this group?

05:52 For me, it doesn’t really matter. I’m in Year Two of my NBA career, so I’ve always been used to being thrown in lineups, being thrown out of lineups. Maybe for some of the guys that are used to that consistency, it might be more important, but for me it’s always a stay ready, be ready for whatever type of mentality, so whether I start or I come off the bench, I can only speak for myself. It doesn’t matter too much.

06:20 Obviously, your defensive improvements have been spoken about. Where do you think that you’ve grown the most offensively, as well so far this season?

06:29 Offensively, I struggled early on with my shot a little bit compared to last year, but I feel like my shot’s in a good place right now, so just keeping the floor spacer, I feel like I’m where I’ve made some strides, but I still-- I need to be better is just keeping the ball moving. So sometimes I get stuck in these shot fakes and then the offense stops. My job out there is really being a connector. I touch the ball, I either shoot, I pass, I put it on the floor for one or two dribbles, but at some points I feel like I’ve done a really good job at that and sometimes I still feel like I need to do better.

07:11 Quinten, you mentioned close games and just kinda the comfort you guys felt last year after the trade and we know 5-9 in clutch games this year. Are there any tangibles that you guys have gone over, be it in film or things that you’ve looked at down the stretch that you guys aren’t doing this year in games that you were doing at the end of last year?

07:26 That’s a good question. I asked the same question to Terry Stotts last year, or a few practices ago, from what’s the difference between now and last year and it is not one point you can point at. Sometimes we throw the ball away too much. Sometimes we can’t get a defensive rebound. Sometimes your shots just don’t go in. And it’s not-- for me, it doesn’t seem like it’s one thing you can point at, but like I said, it’s on small details and it’s definitely something we can fix. Thank you guys.

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