The coach of Joventut Badalona, Carles Duran, said after losing to Barça at the Palau Olímpic in the third game of the Endesa League semifinals (77-83) that his team “will not give up nor will it stop fighting” this Friday to try force game five at the Palau Blaugrana.
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The technician stated that This Friday “a new battle” will be seen, despite the fact that his team “goes to the physical limit” as he recognized that it happened in the last quarter of the third game.
“We could do better and surely some rotation can improve it, but we are what we are. We will try to be the best Joventut this Friday but they have a battery of playersand two or three players who discard”, commented the technician.
Duran was convinced that his team “will give everything again” in the fourth game and, despite the defeat in the third, he stated that he cannot blame his players for “any effort”remembering that some, like Derek Willis, has more than 30 minutes per game in the series.
“Our goal is to return to the Palau Blaugrana and the wish is to play the final, something that is very difficult for this club, but we have a rival who knows how to hit us and if this Friday they are better than us, as in the first and third games, they shake hands and congratulate them. Nothing else can be done,” he concluded.
For its part, base Andrés Feliz said this Thursday that in the fourth semifinal game against Barça his team will have to put “a very high physical level” to try to force the fifth game.
The Dominican player assured that the team, in addition, “will have to control turnovers and fight more for the rebound” in order to match the intensity of the game of the azulgranas, if they repeat the approach shown on Wednesday in Badalona (77-83) .
“This does not end here and we need the 10,000 fans again because we are going to fight to the limit“, commented the player who played the third game with a sprain in his right ankle.
Despite the fact that Barça dominated the scoreboard from start to finish in the third match, Feliz stated that his team “had an opportunity to get the match” but that they missed it “because of little things” that they cannot repeat.
Feliz recalled that the team “showed” in the second game that they can beat Barça, but to achieve it again this Friday they have to play “at a very good level and rhythm, and the whole team be together.”