By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
CSKA Moscow star guard Mike James didn’t hold back anything when he made a rather raw and deeply honest self-criticism following the loss of his team to a heavily shorthanded Olympiacos Piraeus on the road.
“We got punked. We just fucked up,” James told reporters after the match.
According to numbers, James was the leading performer of CSKA with 23 PIR, after finishing the game with 20 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Yet the reigning EuroLeague scoring king, couldn’t bear that he committed six out of his team’s 21 turnovers and was unable to get over the fact that he didn’t get his usually nuclear-packed engine going from early on.
He felt that this loss, CSKA’s second in a row following the one to Anadolu Efes at home, was something akin to a slap in the face.
“We got hit on the mouth and we feel bad for it,” James said. “It started with me in the first quarter. I didn’t come out as strong as I needed to as one of the leaders fo the team. I turned the ball over too much and didn’t really do what I was supposed dot do.”
In James’ eyes, it was a lost opportunity to reclaim the high standards he has set for himself.
Over 24 games into the 2019-2020 EuroLeague regular season, James averages 21.0 points, 4.3 assists and 3.4 rebounds in 28:46 minutes.
“I had a rough couple of weeks as far as how I was playing. I needed to get back on playing better. Making better decisions and being a better player for this team,” James said.
Olympiacos outplayed CSKA on both ends by implementing some steelclad defense and using immense amounts of energy and hustle to nullify the opposing offense and, at the same time, win extra possessions.
This humongous effort was converted to 21 points off turnovers and 17 second-chance points. The “Reds” collected 19 offensive rebounds while CSKA had eight.
“We got to work on our hustle,” James said. “We got punked. I don’t know what the Greek word is for that… or any European word. But we got punked.”
James didn’t have any explanation of why his team lacked the necessary focus to get back on a winning track following the defeat to Efes.
“Zero idea,” James said. “The Efes loss was definitely hard and it was another game I didn’t play particularly well. We all wanted to bounce back but sometimes it just doesn’t come the way you wanted to.”
Despite the loss, James believes that there might be a lesson to be learned from this result and especially the way he and his teammates were outperformed by Olympiacos.
“We got to grow. We are going to watch the whole game tomorrow probably and figure out what’s going on and we got to get better. And it starts with me.”