By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
AX Armani Exchange Olimpia Milano beat FC Barcelona Lassa on the road and Spanish coach Sito Alonso was not happy about it. And that includes also the calls. Alonso wasn’t satisfied how the refs handled the last five minutes of the game.
“Today is a particularly hard defeat. We weren’t being able to close the game and we couldn’t finish them when we were up by 10-12 points. We didn’t really believe that we can win and we had problems on offense and defense. I think the last minute had terrible referee’s decisions. The offensive foul on Tomic, the 5 seconds in the service of Milan and the unsportsmanlike foul to Tomic not reviewed when everything is reviewed“, said Alonso
“When a referee that doesn’t want to repeat a play is being on another side of the floor or when he points five seconds and does not whistle, it’s curious. If you do things wrong a team like Milan can beat you because they have great players. We have done things well during the game but the lack of regularity in League and in Euroleague worries me. We should not think about what happened or the situation we are in, but about the game, we are playing“, Alonso continued.
However, he stated that Barcelona will not give up. “We have the ambition to win what is left. The Euroleague is not impossible, but almost impossible, you have to be realistic. We have things left to compete with. Any can re-launch us.We have not been able to handle the mental recovery of the team, neither when we have won incredible games or when we have lost. We should have a stronger mentality. Olympiacos has lost by 20-30 and has had the competitive power to recover. The competitive factor is essential and that team is an example. We don’t know how to compete to win“, Alonso explained.
On the other side, Simone Pianigiani was thrilled the way his team played in the crucial minutes. “I think that my players deserved this win because after the final minutes of the first quarter when we lost our flow and when I changed my point guard and we lost our timing, after that we kept playing the right way without so many turnovers, which is so important here… My players were ready after the last out of bounds to play two good defensive possessions at the end. For us this is important, because like Barca we are a completely new team, to be better and better in the final minutes, the crucial moments.”, said the Italian coach.