The Warriors broadcast crew (die Bob Fitzgerald die die die just die) were making a big thing about how Eric Paschall was supposedly dominating Nicolo Melli. They wouldn’t shut up about it. Yeah, maybe Paschall got the better of Melli in some one-on-one situations. Yeah, maybe Paschall outscored Melli by almost a 2-to-1 margin. Yeah, maybe Paschall is a big hunk of American beef who loves to bang in the paint and Melli is just another Euro softie who wants to shoot threes all the time.
But here’s the deal: Paschall’s team lost, and Melli’s team won, and Melli was the one to plunge the dagger straight into the Warriors’ already-dead-due-to-repeated-stabbings heart.
So there. Final score: Italy 1, America 0.
I was getting kind of worried that I wouldn’t get to make another vid for Melli all season, that his NBA debut of 14 would remain his best performance. But he has now officially avoided the dreaded “MCW-itis”, which is a condition where a player peaks in their first ever game. I can’t think of many players besides Michael Carter-Williams who still have the condition (Jake Layman had it for a while), and now we can deem Melli cured. He can now continue his career with confidence, knowing that he is better than Carter-Williams, now and forever.