By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
CSKA Moscow and Real Madrid will play in one of the two semifinals of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four, while Fenerbahce BEKO is still waiting for their opponent from the duel between Anadolu Efes and FC Barcelona Lassa.
Everything will be decided on Game 5 but when Barca’s coach Svetislav Pesic was asked, which team Fenerbahce’s coach Zeljko Obradovic would prefer to play against in the semifinal, he answered right away: “Certainly not Barcelona”.
As for Game 4, Pesic added: “It was a game that we expected. A tough game, the game that we needed to win in any case, if we wanted to force one more game against one big team, a team that plays very good basketball. One more time, we showed that if we play like a team and control the rebounds like we did tonight… I think we played a perfect game; 37 rebounds, 14 offensive rebounds, doesn’t happen every day. To keep an offensive-oriented team like Efes to 40% shooting, a team that hit 75% of its two-point shots in Game 3, is excellent team defense from our side. I think my guys deserved this victory”.
Pesic explained what he liked and what he expects his team to do in Game 5: “For me, it is always important the way we play. I believe we played a very solid game, a perfect game. We didn’t lose control of the game at any time. As we did many times this season, we played good defense. If we are focused, basketball is always a team sport in which players execute the coach’s decisions. We have learned a lot from our last game. We had to win our one-on-one matchups on defense, and then on offense. This is how we played in some important games this season and how we played tonight. I hope that in Game 5 in Istanbul, we will play with this attitude and play smart, taking good decisions, helping each other out. We played really, really well on defense.”