By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Barcelona coach Sarunas Jasikevicius took his share of responsibility for the loss of his team to Real Madrid in the EuroLeague semifinal for a second consecutive season. The Blaugrana collapsed 26-42 in the second half after leading 44-36 at halftime.
“Over the course of 40 minutes, like we always say the responsibility in this situation falls with the coach obviously,” Jasikevicius said. “Like I said before, probably I didn’t find a way for us to go more with the ball side to side to involve each other. We looked a lot like a team that wanted to do a lot of things by ourselves. Strangely enough, we came here by playing very good team basketball. But these are the specifics of the Final Four, no? One bad game and you lose the title. Unfortunately for us, it’s over.
Jasikevicius was asked about the unprecedently poor shooting night of Barcelona superstar Nikola Mirotic. The former MVP shot a mere 1-10 from the field and finished with three points. He scored his first points halfway through the fourth period.
“People are humans,” Saras said. “They could have bad days. He has the right to play bad. Other players have the right to be bad. It’s not bothering me. I thought we were still close. The problem for me was that I didn’t find a way to get us to play like a team. Anything can happen in individual performances. But you must overcome bad performances as a team. They are humans. This is what I don’t like. That we left our idea as a team and “team game” and we started trying to solve things by ourselves. We’re paying the price for it.”
After the Milwaukee Bucks were defeated by the Miami Heat in the first round of the NBA playoffs, superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo rejected the notion that his team failed this season, mentioning that, “there’s no failure in sports.”
So far in 2022-23, Barcelona lost in the SuperCup and Spanish Cup tournaments and now was eliminated in the EuroLeague semifinal for second straight season after losing in the championship game of 2021.
Does Saras agree with Giannis and his idea of “failure” in sports? “It’s up to you guys to decide. For me, it’s a huge disappointment. Failure? I don’t know. I don’t want to be on the news now quoting Giannis. It’s not important.”