BAGATSKIS, AINARS
Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv
"We prepared the game and most important was not the basketball things, offense, defense, tactics. Most important was playing stable basketball. Stabilize the game for all 40 minutes. Don’t rush anything. Discipline. Consistency. All these kinds of words. For 20 minutes, the guys showed. I think the whole gym, all of Israel was impressed. Quality basketball. 1 turnover. Smart decision, nothing else. Just good quality basketball. Third quarter, everything is changing, for some reason. We started to celebrate, we were tired, we lost concentration. For some players, just bodies were on the court, not spirit. And at halftime I said there is only one way for Darussafaka to be back in the game and that’s three-point shots. Of course Darussfaka is a very serious team, a very mentally strong team and this season beat this season big name clubs in Europe. And they know how to play, especially if the opponent starts to hesitate, starts to think. David [Blatt] knows very well how to use those situations. And I don’t remember exactly, but in five or six minutes, Darussafaka was back in the game. And I say this before every game, if you don’t know what to do with the ball, shoot it. No turnovers. Until halftime we had 1 turnover. In total 10. The positive thing is that’s much less than the average for the season. Turnovers compensate bad rebounding, bad shooting and that was true in this game. Generally I am really happy because we won like twice. One in the standings and won confidence. "