Ergin Ataman: “This was a risky match...”

Defeating Israel’s Maccabi Fox Tel Aviv 90-77 in the 8th-week match of Turkish Airlines Euroleague game, Anadolu Efes head coach Ergin Ataman stated his thoughts at the post-game press conference:

“We played a good match in our home tonight. It was a beautiful match. We began with an aggressive defence. Our strategy was to stop Scottie Wilbekin and Michael Roll’s pick and rolls and we succeeded at that. Though we couldn’t raise the score difference in the first half. The reason behind that was the 11 offensive rebounds we allowed our rival to score. We began with the same strategy to the second half and done a good defence again. Johnny O’Bryant forced us in this part with his inside and outside points. We found a cure to that and began to find the points through fastbreaks that we couldn’t find in the first half and sorted out our rebounds. We have had a good support from the bench tonight. Krunoslav Simon, Tibor Pleiss and Shane Larkin supported us well. This was an important victory for us. Maccabi Fox Tel Aviv match was a risky match. Their coach has been changed, this would’ve been an issue for us. Though we won. We stroke well on offense, scored 24 assists, I am happy because of it.”