Inside Sixers: De’Anthony Melton’s motivation, an intense 1-on-1 game and the story behind the scenes

Montrezl Harrell emerged inside the 76ers’ locker room Sunday night with a portable speaker, blasting his version of a victory playlist.

He sang along with Mike Posner’s “I Took a Pill in Ibiza (Seeb Remix)” and Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel.” Matisse Thybulle danced disco-style, extending his arms to point his index finger into the air. P.J. Tucker gave Harrell grief that the eclectic choices “weren’t him,” and Harrell countered that “Tuck [was] mad” because, at 37 years old, he prefers to listen to Jay-Z and Nas.

“Keep positive vibes around the locker room,” Harrell said. “That’s it. We’re playing with great spirit, great attitude, man. Everybody’s enjoying themselves, and that’s how basketball’s got to be.”

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid’s 53 points power Sixers to 131-113 win over Hornets

Directly across the room from Harrell sat Joel Embiid, stoically icing his feet. Had one not watched the Sixers top the Hornets, 131-113, they likely never would have imagined the All-NBA center had just completed a 53-point outing. Yet the ordinarily calm demeanor was fitting, given Embiid’s monster outings are becoming commonplace. He became first player in the NBA this season to score at least 50 points in two games, and exits Sunday leading the league in scoring at 33.4 points per game.

The celebratory environment, though, capped a strange week for the Sixers, whose win over Charlotte moved them to 14-12. The week began with a bad double-overtime loss in Houston, where James Harden put up a clunker in his return from a foot injury. After three days off, the Sixers then avoided a disastrous collapse against the Los Angeles Lakers by regrouping to clamp down in overtime. Then, they pulled away from the Hornets, allowing Embiid to receive a rousing ovation from the home crowd as he checked out of the game.

Here are some more scenes that defined the week:

As De’Anthony Melton approached his career high in scoring (33 points) and three-pointers made (eight) Friday against the Lakers, teammates did not purposely ignore him like a pitcher on the verge of a no-hitter.

In fact, Tyrese Maxey did the opposite. Whenever Melton came out for a break, Maxey motivated Melton to keep firing.

“If you don’t keep scoring, then [you’re] soft,” Melton said Maxey jokingly told him.

Such playful encouragement would not have occurred during the Sixers’ previous three games, as Maxey is still not traveling with the team while recovering from his fractured foot. Coincidentally, Melton spoke at shootaround before the Lakers game about missing Maxey’s presence on the Sixers’ 0-3 trip.

“I ain’t gonna lie, it was a little sad,” Melton said. " … He’s always smiling. He’s always joking and stuff. Just having him around the team was good for us, his positive energy.”

As Doc Rivers chatted with the media following Thursday’s practice, the coach abruptly stopped mid-answer to say, “this is the loudest one-on-one [game].”

The trash talk-filled King of the Court battle on the side of the gym closest to Rivers had been rolling long before the coach began his session. It involved a variety of players, from little-used second-year guard Jaden Springer to Embiid, and multiple staffers. Maxey gleefully watched from the sideline.

Some highlights:

* When Tucker hit the floor while matched up with Embiid, the MVP contender exclaimed, “Why are you flopping in a practice?!”

* When Tucker’s flipped hook shot over Paul Reed garnered a “That’s luck!” reaction, Tucker responded with, “Eastern Conference semifinals, same thing!” (Tucker was on the Miami Heat team that knocked last season’s Sixers out of the playoffs)

* When Springer used a dribble move to his left to get past Tucker, it drew “oohs” and “ahs.” But when Springer could not finish at the rim, he scaled the wall behind the basket like Spider-Man and banged on the padding.

* When Embiid took too many dribbles — and claimed he was unaware of said rule — Tucker said, “We learn from our mistakes. We [screw] up [and] we don’t do it again. You got kids.”

“We’ve had a great vibe all season,” Embiid said late Friday of those matchups. “We might be [14-12], but it hasn’t changed anything off the court. … Obviously, we need to get healthy and we need to go on a run, but that’s how it is every single day.”

Georges Niang spent his Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field, taking in the Army-Navy football game.

On his Instagram, the reserve forward posted, “I don’t know who to root for, so go America!”

“That was so cool,” Niang said when asked about the experience following Sunday’s shootaround. “I forgot the [option] style that each team played, so that was kind of unique. But someone made a great point. They said, ‘Everyone that’s playing on that field is willing to give their life for everybody that’s watching them in the stands,’ and I thought that was kind of powerful.

“You have those guys competing against each other, hitting hard — some of the hits that I saw early on were kind of absurd. But just knowing that those were the same people that are giving us the freedoms that we enjoy every day here, we can never take [that] for granted.”

As player development coach Dwayne Jones helped the Sixers going through their pregame workouts about two hours before tipoff against the Lakers, his son watched from the courtside seats.

At one point, Jones walked over — and pulled two soft pretzels out of his sweatshirt pocket.

“Cool dad tricks,” Jones told an onlooker.

» READ MORE: ‘Mr. Do Something’: How De’Anthony Melton became an elite defender and essential Sixer

Teams’ advance scouts sit in the front row of the media section at the Wells Fargo Center, and are usually quite subdued while tracking play calls and tendencies. But Sunday night yielded at least two noticeable reactions.

Three scouts seated in a row chuckled when the Hornets’ Jalen McDaniels jumped and barreled into Tucker — who entered Sunday shooting 39% on 1.6 three-point attempts per game — after a pump fake in the corner.

A few minutes later, the scout in the middle did the “hold me back!” move to the guys on either side of him after Embiid’s authoritative and-1 dunk.