Partizan’s basketball players suffered an extremely convincing defeat at the hands of Efes – 97:65. The black and whites thus further complicated their situation in the Euroleague, and after the match even coach Željko Obradović was not satisfied .
He spoke very briefly in the first presentation.
– Congratulations to Efes, they played a great game and deserved to win. They played a perfect match from start to finish.
Is there any explanation for this kind of Partizan game, it was really lukewarm in defense?
– There is no explanation, I don’t know either. The only thing that is certain is that everything that happened is going to me. As a coach, I have the biggest responsibility and that’s it. What can we do? Not too much. Tomorrow we should come to the hall in the morning, talk, look each other in the eyes and see where we are, what we are and prepare for the next games. It’s an amazing calendar, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, it’s all up to me.
Are you an optimist?
– Should we go back to where we were five months ago? Is that the question? I don’t know if I’m an optimist, how much I’ve been through and what I’ve done, I don’t believe I was a pessimist. But, what a coach needs to have in him is realistic, I take responsibility absolutely. Aware that it is so. Of course, we will react. For me personally, I don’t know how for others, this kind of release is incredible.
He points out that fatigue was not a problem either.
– I don’t know, we had a vacation after Dubai, it was terribly tiring. Barcelona and all that, the consequence of everything. The training and preparation was very good, I was pleased with how it turned out. We prepared things that we thought would help. Nothing worked. Let’s see where we are and what we are and why.
The question arises, why in such a decisive match were they without energy, concentration, will, is it a bad day? How guilty is the opposing team, which controlled from start to finish.
– Efes is an outstanding team, they came back from some situations where they had a lot of injured players and they have one of the best rosters. Dozens of games depended on them. They played smart, they punished everyone. We made such mistakes in defense, and in attack, where we gave the ball away. We did some things that we tried to show the players in relation to the first game, so we made a mistake again. That’s it. Efes is an outstanding team, but we had to and could do better, that’s for sure.
It’s your fault, but the players weren’t in the mood, as if they came one after another to play?
– I don’t remember the same, what can I say. That’s right. As always, there are bad things in the better games. Not to talk in this one. What probably with experience, is a painful defeat, but painful defeats are those that are half a basket, one ball away. I guess we will find the motivation and strength to get up, to play against the Sailor, whatever the Sailor is, taking into account that we have important games on Tuesday and Thursday. Care must be taken, some, not all, tried to play energetically. But that is the question, some mistakes are made from too much desire. But that’s understandable. I like to see a player struggling, some were not at the level that is needed. I will take responsibility for everything.
How much will tonight’s approach affect the rest of the season and will you change your approach to them?
– There is no reason for me to change my approach in training, we had two proper training sessions in preparation, and they are for players I still trust. You know what, the job of a coach is such that even though the way I did it and the way I will continue to do it, to be direct and specific and to correct when you talk for some reason is not the first time. When some games are won, the face of the player is not important to me, but whether he is doing well or badly. It’s something I’ve been doing since the first moment, I don’t want to change it. That’s the only real way. Tonight I was the calmest, I was trying, from the timeout we score a basket every time, that didn’t happen, but here it did. Then sep leaves a question, that I say many times don’t rush, on the first ball, let’s play basketball, I didn’t get an answer to that. But, as always until now. The most direct and what is always the best way to show players where they worked and where they went wrong is video. We sit down, we talk. That’s it, maximum trust in them. We have four more games in the Euroleague, let’s see where we can finish. It’s all in one, two wins. It doesn’t depend so much on us, as it is up to this moment or up to a couple of rounds ago.
Isak Bonga is back on the floor, we saw that he has a lunge, how important it will be that he is there
– Well, if I had to decide to start with Bongo, for some reason I did. Who followed and watched the game against Efes, we started with the same line-up as here. For various reasons, it was better there than here. Bonga is someone who gives the team solidity and strength in defense and plus is someone who shoots at some percentages that are good for three points. If you look at shooting percentage tonight, five of 30 three-pointers. And then, 19/42 for two, they bowled six more from nine fewer balls. For three-pointers, they shot 11/24, we had 72 total shots compared to their 57 and we had more penalties. Do you understand the difference? If the pva ball was kicked, everything is different from what Efes does, they attack, throw the ball away, the player alone. Poor rotation under the basket and so on.
– Then of course I return the film of what we did, because we don’t have the opportunity to train much in the big hall, I asked to shoot. You ask yourself, we didn’t do much, we worked on the details of the attack, I insisted on the players’ positions, you get into this position. What does that mean? Should we give up? No. That’s the way we should work, the players should understand that the created position is better and that they will shoot more than when they rush. It happened against Barcelona, that we had 18 more shots for two points, and we had one more interception. The team struggled, if you have more possession, you struggle in the rebound. Not enough, not that it’s not enough. If this is the result, we played the worst game of the season. When you lose like this, there’s not much philosophy, we played poorly. The coach set a bad game, let’s move on. More painful are defeats at the beginning of the season with one ball, one attack. At least that’s how I see it .
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