Ataman: “Important Victory for the League Leadership…”

Defeating the Fenerbahçe Beko team 85-72 in the 14th-week match of ING Basketball Super League, Anadolu Efes head coach Ergin Ataman stated his thoughts post-game:

"It isn’t easy to raise the point difference. Ultimately, our rival was a Euroleague team, they have quality players. I cannot say that we’ve generally played well but we’ve moved the ball around well. Fenerbahçe Beko played defensively mostly, to stop Larkin and Micic’s penetrations. Therefore, Moerman found space and used this opportunity very well. This is an important victory for us. Our unbeaten streak continues and we’ve raised the victory difference with our closest rival Fenerbahçe Beko to three victories. This is very important for the league leadership. There were unexpected turnovers but it was a close match. We’ve defended well generally and on the contrary to the match we’ve lost against Fenerbahçe Beko in Euroleague we’ve controlled the rebounds well. Fenerbahçe played with Olympiacos three days ago and played with us today. They will have a tough match as well. Euroleague is a hard marathon. Looking at Europe and Turkey, we are playing matches above 80%. We are traveling all the time in these conditions. We may be one of the teams that travel a lot in Europe, the Euroleague teams. Because football teams are not playing this many matches and every match has the atmosphere of a finale. The match against Barcelona and this one had an atmosphere like that. We will play against Real Madrid on Tuesday night, and it’s a critical match for us. We would like to definitely win. We are used to this. The only downside is not having an audience here and to travel a lot in these conditions but there is nothing we can do about it.” 

Tags:
  • Ergin Ataman
  • Fenerbahçe Beko