By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse, who was also coaching Team Giannis at the All-Star weekend, had high praise for his assistant coach Sergio Scariolo.
“I love Sergio, I really miss him here,” Nurse said in the middle of the All-Star weekend in Chicago, per AS. “He is an essential part of our staff, part of the reason that we are the type of group that we are. He is a basketball brain. He is very intelligent, he has a lot of composure … For me it is very important that he is by my side in the games, he is someone with a lot of value in what I am as a coach.”
He also praised Scariolo’s effort in the Spanish national team, as well as Marc Gasol’s: “Now he is with Spain and it is something we understand and we are also proud, happy for him. We know what they have formed there, we know what he did this summer at the World Cup, he and Marc Gasol, of course. We are very proud of them.”
For Gasol, Nurse said that the Raptors veteran big brings a lot to the table on both ends of the floor: “He does everything well that a point guard can do, everything well that can be done in his position. In everything: in offense, in defense … he contributes a lot every day, he works hard… He gives us a lot, not only in defense. His versatility in offense is also very important, his reading of the game… Many times I tell my players to start the attacks simply by giving him the ball.”