PHILADELPHIA — De'Anthony Melton is ready to get back to the court with the Philadelphia 76ers. A new season is always exciting to an NBA veteran but Melton is particularly eager to play under Nick Nurse, who enters his first season as the Sixers head coach with a reputation of a schematic wizard.

Melton will be available for the Sixers in their preseason home opener against the Boston Celtics after sitting out the first preseason contest while Joel Embiid, James Harden and Furkan Korkmaz continue to be out. Even missing one game, Melton said, means he has to readjust to what Nurse is doing — which, to put it bluntly, is a lot.

“I mean, sitting out that first game, kind of put my head a little fuzzy because now I'm getting back to everything I was doing. But it's fun,” Melton said after the Sixers' morning shootaround. “It's fun because he has a lot of things that he said, ‘We're gonna try that you may not like but you may like but we're going to try it and see.’ So, I'm excited to try new things on defense just to get my defensive capabilities.”

As evidenced in the Sixers' preseason opener, which they lost to the Celtics in Boston, Nurse has the Sixers defending more aggressively. They will be deploying more tactics as the season goes along as Nurse finds out what works for his team. A philosophy that was described by one of his former assistant coaches as “freedom within structures,” Nurse has talked frequently about how Philly will be doing trial and error throughout the regular season.

On top of new schemes, Nurse is implementing a different language for how the Sixers communicate on the floor. A facet of the game that Philly coaches and players talked constantly about last season, it will be even more important this year.

“Instead of saying directional, we're saying strong or weak and stuff like that,” Melton said. “So just saying all that. Communication skills for the rest of the team is important.”

While Nurse's schemes will have the Sixers playing differently, the reality is that there would be a learning curve no matter who Doc Rivers' successor was. Especially with a new coaching staff headlined by Bobby Jackson, Rico Hines, Bryan Gates and Coby Karl, there's some meshing to be done.

“I feel like any scheme is different and sometimes it's tough to pick up but it's a new coach, new coaching staff so that type of stuff you got to implement, too,” Melton said. “It's not rocket science and we just go out there and have fun and play hard.”

On the other side of the ball, Melton anticipates playing with pace and shooting a lot of threes, a focus that he is excited to play with alongside Tyrese Maxey. Nurse encourages aggression in attacking when on offense, something that should help uplift a Sixers offense that may not get Harden (or, at least, the most motivated version of him) this season and features spry athletes. Maxey and Melton would benefit from having guys like Kelly Oubre Jr. and Jaden Springer running in early offense with them.

Any difficulties in learning Nurse's new schemes will have the potential reward of a team that is better suited for the playoffs. Melton, whose excitement in playing for Nurse was apparent the second he was asked about him at media day, is about to get his first reps under a coach he believes will do great things for the Sixers.

“Man, I feel amazing,” Melton said. “After watching last game and seeing everything the team implemented, I'm excited to get out there, have fun with my guys and be in front of this crowd, too.”