by Bilal Baran Yardımcı / info@eurohoops.net
After Fenerbahce’s victory against Crvena Zvezda in Round 7 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, the man of the match Johnathan Motley talked to Eurohoops about the game, his adaptation to the EuroLeague, Nick Calathes, and the infamous final possession against Barcelona.
The US big man had a double-double already in the third period vs. the Belgrade team and ended the game with 25 points and ten rebounds.
“It was good, but we played a horrible first half. We were not happy giving up 41 points, and we tried to do better in the second half, and we did. We are definitely happy with the win, but we think we can play better,” Motley said.
After spending the last season with PBC Lokomotiv Kuban, his first in Europe, the 27-year-old center joined the team of Dimitris Itoudis during the summer. He’s in great shape but believes adaptation to the EuroLeague is not over.
“I’m getting more comfortable. That’s just how my game is. I do a lot of different things, and I think I’m a smarter player than people realize. I’m just trying to adapt and see where I can get better. There are still multiple things I can work on, like shooting from outside. That’s another thing I can add like I’ve been doing in the past, but my role is different here, and that is to dominate the paint”.
During his career, he mostly played as a power forward, but with the Istanbul team, he plays as a center.
“I just want to be on the court. I don’t care how. 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5… It doesn’t matter to me. I just wanna play, try to do my best when I’m out there, and help the team win,” Johnathan Motley added.
With Nick Calathes beside him, everything is easier.
“He’s gonna feed you buckets. He knows what the defense will do before they do it most of the time, and he just pushes you to be great. All I have to do most of the time is to dunk the ball, which is easy for me”, the American noted.
During the last seconds of the loss against Barcelona, Motley could’ve tied the score with a three-pointer, but he went for a dunk, the time run out, and the Catalan team won 81-80. Motley tried to explain why he attacked the rim instead of shooting the ball.
“I wanted to score as fast as possible, and I thought we were going to have three seconds left after I dunked it. I was waiting to see what Marko Guduric will do. He passed the ball to me. Kalinic was on my right, and I think it would be a bad shot for me, so I just drove. Didn’t realize that the time went down, as much as it did. I was expecting in my head that if I dunk it fast, we can foul again and run another play. But for people to think this is crazy, the game doesn’t come down to one possession. We played horribly on defense, shot the ball badly, and if we played better, we would win the game,” Johnathan Motley concluded to the Eurohoops.