Ataman: “We won the match with our smart and tough game in the last seconds…”

Defeating Spanish team Herbalife Gran Canaria 94-90 6th-week match of Turkish Airlines Euroleague game, Anadolu Efes head coach Ergin Ataman stated his thoughts at the post-game press conference:

“Before I begin criticizing technically and tactically I would like to bring your attention to the slippery floor. It is impossible to play a Euroleague game on this floor. The teams invest in the players with the budgets of 10, 20, maybe 30 million dollars. Our player Shane Larkin got injured while training yesterday and we don’t know how many weeks he will sit on the bench for. All of my players slipped during the match today for 9-10 times. This floor isn’t eligible for basketball playing. What can I tell to my players? I tell them to defend but they cannot even stay in the defensive position. About the game; it was an aggressive match especially on the fastbreaks. Early shoots, early three-pointers. We made the mistake of playing with their rhythm in the first half and finished the first half trailing 52-50. I am unhappy about the match we played until the last 5 minutes, then it became better on our behalf. We struggled to stop Oliver, he joined in and scored 10 points. We changed our defense to up and came back via playing well on the fastbreaks. We didn’t play well tonight but we won the match with our smart and tough game in the last seconds.