De'Anthony Melton discusses his gradual return from injury, working on shot mechanics and confidence through extra reps. The Warriors shot 10-of-42 from three and allowed 124 points, with Melton emphasizing the need to slow the pace and tighten defense.
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De'anthony, what kind of challenges did Atlanta's athleticism and size, you know, with their wings present to you guys tonight?
Man, like, kind of like you said, they got a lot of long, lanky dudes out there, especially, you know, with their guard play. So, they did a real job of just getting to the ball, being aggressive on their switches, using their hands as best as possible. I mean, that's how they can, you know, win games and get in transition. They did a well job about that today too.
How do you, how have you, do you feel like your game is kind of getting back in rhythm over the last few weeks?
I mean, I feel like it's coming along, you know, same time, like I said, I'm just trying to take it day by day, game by game, see whatever, you know, the next game holds. Feeling pretty confident, just, you know, got to see what, you know, what next day endures.
Where do you feel, I don't know, sharper maybe than your first few games back?
Just, I think just confidence-wise, you know what I mean? Just feeling more confident just to beat my defender off the dribble, making the right decision. I think when I first got back, I was so used to, you know, playing against coaches and everything like that. So now, I mean, when I got back, it's going against, 6'7", 6'8" wings and 7-footers and quick dudes. So I think that was just the biggest adjustment for me.
How about your shot? I know you had a, you had a couple of good games recently.
Yeah.
Where do you feel like that's at?
Just more reps, just more reps. And just, I think I've been more dialed in on my details of my shot, talking with multiple people and staff, you know, just, you know, how they see me shooting the past and how I've been shooting when I first got back, the difference of it and difference of the height of my ball, the way I'm snapping my wrist, my elbow being high, all those things, you know, I wasn't doing entirely and I wasn't enforcing on my shot at first. So now I'm kind of just doing all those things to make sure.
How are you feeling? You know, minute-wise, they've been very careful with you. I think you're up to about 24, 25 now. How do you just kind of feel about where you're at and when you think you can make another leap?
I feel good. I think, I think today was a little different just in terms of the pace of the game. It was a lot faster. You know, that's what these, these type of teams want to do, but I feel good just, you know, in terms of the minutes I've been playing. I'm gonna leave my minute restriction and everything like that up to the medical staff. As long as I can do is just be effective in the most minutes that I have and just whatever I can do out there when I'm out there, just, just capitalize on it.
Steve said he liked the process of how you guys played today. I was wondering, 10 of 42 from 3, but what'd you think of just the shot quality overall? Were those, do you think those are good shots? Just was this one of those nights where you guys couldn't make anything?
Man, I mean, 10 of 42 is tough. You know, getting up 42 threes at the same time is very good for us. We just gotta, you know, we just gotta knock them down. Yeah, I feel like we missed a lot of easy ones. We had some ones that, that was halfway in the basket that jumped out and, you know, those type of fields and points, those add up. So instead of being a 12-point game, it could be a 7 or 6, you know what I mean? You know, and a team like that, you know, they thrive off athleticism and they thrive off getting transitions. So slowing the game down, you know, where we want it to be, but—
De'anthony Melton.
We got a lot of great licks. Tough game. They played well. And, you know, we just got to do better on defense.
How do you kind of square away the fact that you guys played well for most of the game and just came up short?
Be better. That's all we can do. Watch film. I mean, they scored 124 points on us, which is not us at all. You know, We should be holding teams closer to 100 points. I mean, at one point we had a stretch where we was holding teams under 100, you know what I mean? So he's gotta get back to that, dial in back on that and understanding, you know, what it took and what happened. We let some of them shoot, their shooters get loose and you know, those type of things that they definitely add up.
