By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
David Blatt was happy to see thousands of Darussafaka Dogus fans packing “Volkswagen Arena” in a record sold-out match vs Olympiacos, but couldn’t be very pleased with the result during the post-game press conference.
“Congrats to Olympiacos. Obviously it was a very tough and close game. Our poor second quarter really put us in a hole, which we fought back from to a 2-point game, and I think their experience took over at that point,” said the coach of Darussafaka Dogus. “It is a price you pay early in the season, you got to learn these lessons. It is painful, but it is part of growing as a team. I am really happy to see our gym full. We set a record for tickets sold today. And that is also part of our goal, to build a fan-base and create interest in this club going forward, and I think we are doing that. I thank the fans for coming out and supporting us, they really helped us.”
This was the second consecutive game in which Dacka didn’t have its frontline at full strength since Luke Haragondy and Marcus Slaughter were out.
“We played again without two of our forward-centers, now almost for a month without Harangody, and Marcus Slaughter got hurt two days ago. We are in the process of figuring out what we will do next”, he added.
Regarding the second period, where Darussafaka Dogus was outscored 13-19, Blatt commented that: “In the second quarter we had problems, we missed a lot of easy shots around the basket. Olympiacos is a team that knows how to make you pay for turnovers and misses, and they did that well in the second quarter.”