Dusan Ivkovic: “We have important lessons to learn from this match...”

Defeated by the Greek side Olympiacos 91-87 at the fifth week match of Euroleague First Round Group B, Anadolu Efes Coach Dusan Ivkovic commented at the post-game press conference:

“It was a very challenging match today. We had a poor start into the game. Olympiacos performed really well on defense in the first half. One of the reasons we performed poorly in the first half was that Heurtel got into foul trouble too early. He wasn’t able to impact the game too much. We were trailing at the end of the first 20 minutes. I believe we performed much better in the second half, and we were better on offense. And we were ahead by 11 points with five minutes to play. After that point in time, we did everyone else’s mistake and thought the game had been over, and we had won. On the contrary, Olympiacos was able to hang onto the game much better. We couldn’t perform well enough on defense in this part of the game. They read well our offensive plays and performed well on defense. We allowed an uncontested three to Lojeski. Of course, our mistake as a team to be unable to react in the final five minutes was totally under my responsibility. Injuries affect our team performance. We are talking to our medical team to see who is ready by how much, and I’m eagerly waiting for their responses. I believe we will perform better. We will play against Beşiktaş in 48 hours. We have to learn the important lessons from this match and carry on with our preparations...”

Tags:
  • euroleague
  • olympiacos
  • Dusan Ivkovic