“This victory is very important for everyone, but for me it is even more important to improve,” said the Baltic.
The Lithuanian believed that the slump experienced in the last few minutes was a mix of physicality and mentality
The Barça coach, Sarunas Jasikevicius, stated that the Barça team played their “best basketball for 35 minutes” in Thursday’s victory against Real Madrid (75-73), although he regretted that they were not able to “kill the game” in the final stretch.
“We played our best basketball, the strongest on the course for 35 minutes, and then we collapse. We have to be very happy about it, we have been clearly better, but we have to be ‘killers’. You have to kill these games, because the rival is very good and if you don’t kill him he reappears “, summed up the Lithuanian coach.
The Barça coach assured that for him the improvement shown by the team is more important than the victory itself: “We have taken a step forward. This victory is very important for everyone, but for me it is even more important to improve. We have been very solid, we have followed the game plan for more than 30 minutes, and then the last quarter is to learn”.
“We have taken a step forward as a team, it is a game to learn how good we can be and how we cannot lose concentration. We’re upline, but we need a little time. Winning against Madrid always helps to gain confidence and connect more with the fans”, added ‘Saras’.
Jasikevicius thought that the slump experienced in the last few minutes was a mix of physicality and mentality: “In some situations we were tired, in others we gave away too much, as you can’t do in a Clásico, where mistakes are paid dearly. We have stopped playing and we have started looking at the clock to finish, which is the worst thing that you can do in big games.”
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“With so many classics it is very difficult to surprise. they tried to do it with two ‘4’s to open the field and we did other things. You always try, but it’s quite difficult to get it right”, replied the Lithuanian coach when asked about the insistence of looking for Tomas Satoransky in the low post when Sergio Rodríguez defended him.