By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Winning the season opener at home against Olympiacos, Fenerbahce couldn’t do the same against their eternal rivals, dropping a loss to Panathinaikos despite getting up in the lead in the final stretch of the encounter. Sarunas Jasikevicius highlighted the topics of the defeat in the team’s lack of cohesion.
Speaking in the post-game press conference, the Lithuanian head coach looked concerned about his team’s attitude. “What worries me the most, it’s that the team is not together. If we’re not together, we can’t achieve anything this year”, he said. “Basketball-wise we were really bad. Mentality-wise, we were even worse: not really together, not really locked in, not really acting good to one another”, he added.
“It looked like a bunch of individuals. For me, basketball is coming in second place. I don’t understand why Panathinaikos is pressing, and why we are not pressing them. I don’t understand why Panathinaikos talked to each other and discussed between teammates, while we looked at different islands”, Sarunas Jasikevicius continued stressing out to the press after the loss to the reigning EuroLeague champions.
“What I don’t like is that we don’t make steps together. It’s not easy, it will take time, it’s a new team: these are all excuses that we can make. We need to be more together, to be competing more. It’s already the second game in a row at home where one team is pressing us, and we’re on a different note”, he said.
Fenerbahce is “extremely behind a learning curve”
The former Zalgiris Kaunas and Barcelona head coach continued speaking about his team’s lack of togetherness throughout the encounter. “In the third, when we started playing harder, it was a different pitch and a perfect basketball. We managed to beat Efes and Olympiacos just by fighting like crazy. Today, we fought for 15 minutes against the European champions. it’s not enough”, he commented.
Later on, he was asked about Fenerbahce‘s rotation in the center position. “We are extremely behind a learning curve because we had to incorporate new players. Boban [Marjanovic] and Khem [Birch] came later. Nicolò [Melli] and Sertac [Sanli] understand perfectly our system and how we want to play. At this point, it’s clear we are behind”, he replied.
However, summing the post-game press conference up, he came back once again to the mental aspect of this defeat to Panathinaikos. “These are basketball details, and I’m not that worried about that. The team’s togetherness and the fighting spirit are most important”, Jasikevicius ended.
PHOTO CREDIT: Turkish Airlines EuroLeague