By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
During the Darussafaka Dogus – Baskonia post game press conference, David Blatt talked about the 2017 EuroLeague Final Four, mentioning that Istanbul is the place where the tournament should be held since that was the initial decision of the organization.
Blatt was asked about the comments of players like CSKA Moscow guard Aaron Jackson who has expressed his opposition to the Final Four being held in Istanbul.
“Where should the Final Four be played if not in Istanbul? Germany? France? There’s no place in the world where there’s no danger. Unfortunately,” he said. “Sports must go on. Final Four has been given to Istanbul and it should be played here. Nobody needs to be upset about it. Now sports have to win.”
Darussafaka Dogus performed beautifully enough against Baskonia that it produced a new season-high in points with 99. Obviously nothing was reminiscent with the match between the two teams in Vitoria, for the first leg of the regular season.
“The last time we played them, we played a nine o’clock game, which is 11 o’clock our time, and we really struggled. We had 52 points. We almost had 52 at the half today and of course we finished with 98. If you want to beat a team like this that has all that talent and all that scoring ability and can run the ball, you really have to score the ball and we did that today.”
Blatt was quite happy with the way his players behaved on offense and the right choices they made.
“We played right. You should generally shoot about two-thirds of your shots from two and one-third of your shots from three and today we probably did that. It was a big focus; one of our keys was to get the ball in the paint; we probably had 55 paint touches today and that makes a big difference. I think that Dacka is for real and we’ve shown that. We just gotta be consistent and we gotta find a way to win as many games as we can. And fight and see if we can make the playoffs, which would be a great accomplishment for this team. But there’s a long way to go. “