By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
After Anadolu Efes jumped to a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series opposite AX Armani Exchange Milan, head coach Ergin Ataman’s countdown dropped from four to three wins away from capturing the title for the second year in a row. Game 4 will be hosted at Sinan Erdem Sports Hall today, Thursday.
“It is a must to fight very hard to beat his team and reach big goals. Once again, we must win together with the same enthusiasm, excitement and synergy at Sinan Erdem Sports Hall,” he mentioned in the buildup to the next game of the Quarterfinals series, “We will be champions again! Three left!”
“Game 3 was really difficult and tough for both teams. We played really good defense and at the same time we were patient in offense,” mentioned reigning season and Final Four MVP Vasilije Micic, “For the next game we have to approach completely a new game with the same mentality and believe each other and stay focused until the last second.”
Malcolm Delaney, Nicolo Melli, Trey Kell, and Konstantinos Mitoglou are all out for the team coached by Ettore Messina. The undermanned visitors need a win tonight (19:30 CET) to force a Game 5 next week back home, otherwise will be eliminated.
“It’s a do-or-die game, and we’ll approach it as we did throughout the series, well aware that Efes has great individual talent and a lot of experienced players. To beat them we have to play an almost perfect game,” explained the Italian mastermind, “In Game 3, we played very hard and took a lead in the last five minutes, now we are going to try to recreate the same conditions and will try to finish better.”
“We played a very good Game 3, with the exception of some minutes, and in the end their talent took the best out of the game,” added Sergio Rodriguez, “Game 4 is going to be the most important game of our season, so far, and we’ll need to be ready right from the beginning, playing with a lot of energy and attention. We have been working for months to get to this point and, despite injuries and players missing, we’ll try to do our best.”