GRANADA, 19 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Barça coach, Sarunas Jasikevicius, highlighted the “incredible” reaction of his team, “very disciplined and very solid”, after starting from behind in the Copa del Rey match against BAXI Manresa (107-70), and hopes that his players can maintain the “rhythm” in the remainder of the competition, where “the mentality” will be key.
“We are seeing a lot of advantages in all the games and people are coming back to the game after being 20 points behind, this competition is incredible! Sometimes you go in and things don’t work out, and things haven’t worked out for us at all; We have had discipline, we entered -10 or -12. Then we started to fix everything, the reaction of the boys has been incredible,” he declared at a press conference.
Thus, he explained that in the second quarter they have “competed much better.” “Man against man we have taken some of them off the field, which is what Manresa does this year to its rivals. People do not value what Manresa does; they play at a very high pace, with very good pressure. Our response It has been very disciplined and very solid in all aspects. I am very happy because it is a victory against a very good rival”, he pointed out.
“We were able to give everyone minutes, everyone wanted to play to better prepare for tomorrow’s game. Something similar happened to us last year in the quarter-final against Malaga, which also went very badly. That’s why I didn’t like that first quarter. Later, we talked and we moved the ball, we increased our physical tone and we gained rebounds, it is very difficult for Manresa to have taken six offensive rebounds, when they have an average of 15. This is past, we must forget it, because in less 24 hours later you need another effort”, he said in relation to the semifinal duel against UCAM Murcia.
In addition, the Lithuanian coach hopes that his players can maintain this “rhythm” for the remainder of the competition. “This is our idea. None of them has played many minutes. The key is always the whole, the team. First we have to talk about physical fitness and then about basketball, but surely we are going to try to do it,” he said.
In this sense, he considers “very important” the fact of having distributed minutes among all his men. “Now it’s another game in less than 24 hours. Having everyone well, not loaded, is very important, but the most important thing is the mentality,” he stressed. “We need everyone. We leave with very good feelings. In the Copa del Rey everything happens very quickly. We already know what the Cup is like, full of surprises and full of great games”, he concluded.