Bologna –
Scariolo post-game: “First of all congrats to Zalgiris, at the end of the day they deserved to win. We had a slow start, which is not really acceptable. Then we fought and made a terrific effort to come back into the game and we made at the end of the third quarter. Then, at the beginning of the fourth, Isiah Taylor made the difference. A few plays down the stretch he rebuilt their lead which wasn’t unreachable but psychologically, it was a pretty big hit into our stomach. We still tried, we came back to within 4 points, we had a shot to slash it down to 2, but the effort required to make a comeback was too big, especially for some of our players.
“I think the difference in the free throws and the rebounds was statistically the most evident data, if you want to evaluate the game from that point of view. I believe you also have to give credit to Zalgiris because they played really hard. They have tough and competitive players, a solid organization. They don’t need to dish out too many assists because they are so strong one-on-one. If your rim protection is not great and your one-on-one protection is not great, they are going to finish at the rim like they did. We know it, but and we knew the rebounds were always going to be crucial, but knowing it is not enough. We needed to bring that knowledge onto the floor and into the game. We fought and competed until the very end. We do what we can and now we move on to the next game, which is going to be another very tough one.”
