Ataman: “We have reached our play-off target, now we want to be a champion…”

Defeating Galatasaray Odeabank 91-85 in the 30th-week match of Tahincioğlu Basketball Super League game, Anadolu Efes head coach Ergin Ataman stated his thoughts at the post-game press conference:

“Today we have had a chance to watch our player those play for short time-scale usually. We didn’t have Motum in the team. He plays for 35-40 minute average these days. This match was a formality match, had a low motivation but it is a league match at the end of the day, a derby. We fallen behind 12 points at some time in the match, though Simon changed the way of the game and we won. We have finished the normal season in the league. We were on the 9th row when I become the coach of the team, in the mid December. We had a target to go to the play-offs as the third team at least. We reached our target, but it doesn’t end with this yet. We want to become the champion in the play-offs. It will be tough. Now we will wait for out rival, we will have 1-2 days of break and we will begin our preparations afterward.”

Our team captain Doğuş Balbay also stated his thoughts at the press conference as: “It was a wavy normal season, one of our targets was to finish it as the third team at least. Anadolu Efes’s target is always higher but the circumstances forced us to have a lower target and we have reached to that target. Though with today’s match we finished normal season without injury. Now we will have a few day break and continue to prepare. Tomorrow, we will know our rival for the play-offs. We would like to have a proactive preparation time and go into the play-offs in the best way ever. It doesn’t matter who our rival is, the important thing is what we are going to do. I hope that we can reach to our other target, whichis to become the champion of the Turkey League.”

Tags:
  • Doğuş Balbay
  • Ergin Ataman