Valencia –
Coach Luca Banchi spoke in the press conference after the game with Valencia: “I think the defeat was due a lot to our superficiality. Congratulations to Valencia for coming back in the second half. We didn’t have the right intensity in the first quarter. Then we played as I would have liked to see throughout the game. Instead the quality of our game dropped, and 15 turnovers in the second half is heavy. Valencia was great at taking opportunities, we had down moments that at this level you can’t afford. Every possession counts, the qualities of shooting, rebounding, accuracy, playing together. In the second quarter we didn’t respond as a team, and that’s the thing that hurts the most. Pajola suffered an injury, and we should have responded as a team to that as well with steps forward from everyone.
Virtus tired? “I’m not talking about tiredness, what happened is not attributable to tiredness. We have sufficient experience and organization, beyond the merits of Valencia, which raised its aggressiveness, to respond differently on the court.”
“I think Pajola and Hackett are always the ones who raise our defensive intensity, the ones who set the pace. Pajola’s injury is something that overexposes other players, I would have liked a different reaction. We had too many turnovers, we cannot compete at this level like this: in 20′ we had 15 turnovers, this cost us a lot, even in defensive transition. What happens on the court must be an opportunity for others to respond present. When there is so much pressure, the ball goes through everyone’s hands: too many mistakes conditioned by our superficiality.”
