Embiid, 76ers Praise De’Anthony Melton's Defense vs. Booker

De'Anthony Melton's defensive performance against Devin Booker earned the 76ers guard praise from his teammates.

With the Phoenix Suns in town earlier this week, the Philadelphia 76ers had their hands full as they faced one of the Western Conference’s top teams.

Phoenix has several stars the Sixers had to keep their eyes on, but Devin Booker is the prospect that Philadelphia had to prevent from going off as he has the ability to take over. 

Doc Rivers and the Sixers would typically have a defensive standout like Matisse Thybulle follow Booker around as he’s their top defender. However, De’Anthony Melton proved that he was equipped for the task on Monday night.

“He’s a monster defensively,” Joel Embiid said regarding Melton. “He’s got such great hands. He’s physical. I don’t even know what to say. He’s amazing.”

Coming from the Memphis Grizzlies via trade in the offseason, Melton’s ability to have value on both sides of the court was praised. While his offense has been up and down to start the year, defensively, Melton has proven to be a pest on that side of the ball, and the Sixers needed him to keep it up while going against Booker.

“De’Anthony was great,” said Tobias Harris. “I just think, all night, his presence was felt on the defensive end. Whether it’s him scramming time after time if we did get beat, his ball pressure was awesome. We know D-Book is gonna get good looks, and he’s a scorer, and he’s gonna get shots.”

It’s extremely difficult to shut down a player like Booker, who averages nearly 30 points per game. He wasn’t locked down the whole night, as Booker still scored 28 points off 16 shots, but Melton certainly slowed down Booker’s attack and prevented him from single-handily shifting the momentum.

“I thought the biggest thing was every look that he got needed to be contested and a harder look than just an easy pull-up or easy plays,” Harris continued. “I think De’Anthony did a great job of being in his air space and making him take tough looks time after time.”

“He was awesome,” Doc Rivers added. “It’s funny, a guy had 28 points and was very efficient, but I thought De’Anthony Melton defensively was just awesome. I thought the stretch with Matisse on Chris Paul was really good in the first half as well. That was good to see.”

While the Suns did lose Paul for the second half, the Sixers still had a tough task of putting the Suns away as Booker was highly-efficient in the final two quarters. In the end, Philadelphia made it out of the matchup by picking up a 100-88 victory. 

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for All76ers, a Sports Illustrated channel. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.