Bologna –
At the end of the game against Partizan, valid for round 25 of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague regular season, these were the words of coach Luca Banchi: “After a game like this we are used to congratulate the winning team, but I want to say that tonight was a special night. Both teams offered their fans and the audience who watched the game on TV an incredible and exciting contest. Of course we are happy, but we want to give due respect to our opponent, who played one of their best games this season, especially on the road, with great consistency and continuity, but the way we responded showed that even though we are far from our best game in terms of form and condition, we had the spirit to believe and stay in the game until the last possession.”
On Lundberg: “He is a player with undoubted technical qualities, and we are discovering his ability to stay sharp at key moments of a game. This gives us the security of having a point of reference on the court, as are others of his teammates.”
On the quality of defense played by the Virtus and on Dunston: “I can stop at my coaching qualities, I can’t take ten years of life and career away from him. He is one of our landmarks, one of the cornerstones on which we are building the foundation for this season. I hope his example serves his teammates, especially in the department, to raise the level of their performance, concentration and effort because the team needs to maintain this defensive efficiency in the entire 40 minutes within a very long season, made up of so many games. To have him on the team is a privilege, from players like him, Belinelli, Hackett and even Shengelia who I don’t want to call veteran but because of his basketball path they are players we ask to leave as a dowry also what characterizes their uniqueness. We talk about one of the best defenders in the Euroleague, and having him in contact every day makes us as coaches and teammates appreciate his professionalism and concentration, because a lot is related to mental qualities.”
On the lost balls in the first half: “We were a bit naive, without prejudice to the merits of our opponents who were very active and determined. We’re talking about a team that a year ago went one step away from the Final Four, and we’re here trying to defend against the attack of these superpowers. They played a game of great concentration, in the first half they had incredible alertness, whenever there was one too many passes or a soft ball they were always ready to step in and intercept. In the second half I think the intensity dropped, they relied after a series of baskets by Belinelli, which destabilized their defense, on systematic switching. In those situations the ball went into the control of our play makers and they were very good and precise. We always found good conclusions even when very serious mistakes under the basket helped Partizan. They had a great contest, but up to that point we seemed to control it. We started to miss simple baskets, fear of wasting an opportunity takes over, and nevertheless we managed at least offensively to build good shots. The systematic changeover had also happened in Belgrade, it could have become stagnant but we were good at moving the ball and going to find the weak points of their defense.The ending rewarded us, it doesn’t look like the best defense in the second half but this is a game of the highest level, of great intensity with two teams that had a fierce will to win this game and they showed it until the end.It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give credit to our opponents because that magnifies the magnitude of the feat we did tonight.”
