By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Ante Zizic’s breakthrough game in EuroLeague naturally became a topic of discussion in the press conference after the match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Darussafaka Dogus.
When David Blatt was asked about the Croatian center’s performance, he admitted that his player’s upcoming NBA move is close and, more or less, inevitable.
“The problem is that he’ll probably won’t stay here for long,” Blatt said. “He’ll be with the Boston Celtics if and when both sides decide that this’ll happen. We are happy to get a player like that. Every team in Europe had the chance to sign him but no team but us did it. We were the only ones willing to bring him. It’s because we believed in him.”
Despite a series of comebacks, Darussafaka Dogus didn’t to leave Tel Aviv victorious. According to Blatt, his players’ management of their lead after erasing a 16-point deficit could’ve been better.
“I think the fans saw, from their perspective, a fantastic game. The game had almost everything: great plays, great activity, great competitiveness on both sides and certainly a very exciting finish. From our perspective we really, really gave everything we had to come back in the game and ultimately to lead the game by 7 points. And at that point I think that there was one or two plays that we didn’t do a good job defensively and that was the momentum point of the game and ultimately probably cost us the match.”