By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Barcelona coach Sarunas Jasikevicius and forward Nikola Kalinic seemed to have an argument halfway through the third period of the game between the Blaugrana and Anadolu Efes. The Serbian player, who was one of the top contributors for his team until that moment, was sent to the locker room by his coach, never to return.
“Nikola [Kalinic] disrespected the team,” Saras said on the matter during the post-game presser. “We’ll deal with it internally.” Barcelona lost 86 – 96 to an Efes team that was coming off three straight losses.
Jasikevicius was quite disappointed with how his players performed particularly on defense. “96 points are too much,” he said after being asked to comment on the game’s officiating. “Sometimes you want to talk about that [refereeing], sometimes you don’t want to talk about that. The fouls.”
“I’ ‘m only responding to this question because you asked and I have to answer,” Saras added. “I don’t think it was something huge. Micic received 10 fouls. It’s a little bit normal. Vasha is very good. 21 free throw shots. for Efes and 11 for Barca… this is another story. I don’t think that’s the reason we lost the game. We must look at ourselves in the mirror. I, as a coach, didn’t prepare the team. My players didn’t find the motivation to play in the champions’ house.”
“It’s a little bit sad for me because we had some good practices. We had some good practices when we took some days off and didn’t manage to put it on the court.”