By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Darussafaka Dogus head coach David Blatt discussed the reasons of his team’s defeat by Panathinaikos in Athens while addressing various topics related to EuroLeague, and not only, during the post-game press conference.
“Congratulations to coach Pascual and Panathinaikos. It was a hard fought game, and game we certainly had a chance to win. We missed 11 free throws, what was really a one-point game, and that pretty much sums it up for me. Games like this that come down to the end, you make the play, or don’t make the play and the other guy does make a play, and that ultimately determines the outcome. But a lot goes into the game beyond that.”
When asked if he can give an explanation on why Will Clyburn played for 40 minutes, considering the season has the characteristics of a marathon, Blatt smiled and replied: “First of all I don’t have to give an explanation. But the reason is that we played the game without Luke Haragondy and Adrien Moerman (Darussafaka’s two power forwards). We needed Will to play in this position too and he played beautifully. I wish he could play every game for 40 minutes but he can’t. Tonight he had to.”
He was then asked to comment about some of the differences between NBA and Euroleague at this point of the season. “At the early stage of the season in EuroLeague the games are a lot more intense and have more importance. They are played with much more intensity. At this stage. What really sticks out for me is the length of the game. In a 48-minute game you have a lot more time to recover and a lot more opportunity to use different tactics and different players. A 40-minute game makes every play much more important and every minute much more important.”
“Regarding the EuroLeague, what could be better than the fans or the media than to see high quality games every week? Games played by the best teams in Europe, no exception.” Here’s the rest of the post game quotes.