By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Fenerbahce Beko showed a completely different picture in the second half against Zalgiris Kaunas and forward Nigel Hayes-Davis attributed it also to coach Sarunas Jasikevicius’ locker room speech at the break.
As Hayes-Davis mentioned, Saras called him and the rest of his teammates “soft,” something that hurt them and really motivated them to step up.
“In the first half, we were down. They were beating us in all loose ball. We did at least 30 plus mistakes,” Hayes-Davis said to EuroLeague TV. He finished with a team-high 21 points and six rebounds.
“The coach let us hear it with one of the strongest words. You never want to be called soft as a player or as a man. Coach called us soft. And we did a great job to respond to that statement. The crowd was behind us. We were able to fight. We fought a lot harder. We rebounded the ball. And guys made some really big shots.”
Fener trailed 47-34 at halftime but made a big swing to reduce that deficit and go up at the beginning of the fourth period. The Turkish retained the advantage for the rest of the match.
“It’s the worst thing you can be called. You’d rather be called a terrible basketball player than soft,” Hayes-Davis added. “The guys at halftime we talked after our coach’s speech and stated our course”