By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
With six minutes remaining in the third quarter and the New Orleans Pelicans down 71 – 74 to the Washington Wizards, Nicolo Melli hit a game-tying 3-pointer and let out quite the loud reaction.
It was his first triple after the 0-4 he had in the loss to the Sacramento Kings. He was overall looking to get out of a major slump of 1-14 3-pointers in the bubble’s official games.
“You don’t want to know what I told myself. I think I can’t repeat it,” Melli later said in a zoom call. After that 3-pointer, the Italian forward proceeded to score five more points with a dunk and another three, this time in transition, that were a part of a 0 – 9 run for the Pelicans.
During New Orleans’ third-quarter push, Melli dropped eight points in a bit more than two minutes as his team took an 85 – 76 lead to establish its control in the game.
“For sure my shots weren’t falling down. It happens,” Melli said. “I was happy to see my shot going in, not just for me. It helps the team. I know I’m a shooting big and I need to get some threes. I did it and I helped the team to win and that’s the most important thing. But you don’t want to know what I told myself when I hit the three.”
Melli was also a key contributor for the Pelicans’ third-quarter defense, by stalling his opponents’ offense, providing all sorts of help and disrupting shots. He added three blocks to the 10 points and six rebounds he notched in 18 minutes he stayed on the floor.
“We needed to do something. We had to win the game,” Melli said. “It was just a matter of energy I think. A rookie has to bring energy and that’s what I did. We know how to play defense, we did it. We just need to go back and play with a lot of energy. That’s what we did in the second half and we saw the results.”
While Melli was struggling with his shooting, his coach and his teammates were pushing him to keep taking those attempts.
“I know that his shot is going to be there. we kept telling him that he can’t pass shots,” Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry said. “I thought that tonight he was aggressive with his shot. I thought he was good defensively I thought he was very good defensively. He gave us another guy on the floor, the ball movement, and the ability to make plays.”