The opening night of EuroLeague Round 8 delivered several important results and plenty of reaction from the sidelines.
From Peppe Poeta and Zeljko Obradovic after Panathinaikos-Olimpia Milano to Oded Kattash\u2019s harsh self-criticism, here are the post-game comments from the coaches who spoke after Tuesday\u2019s games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Panathinaikos\u2019 80-75 win over Olimpia Milano, Zeljko Obradovic highlighted his team\u2019s ability to battle through difficult moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud because we fought until the end. We tried to play our basketball, but today we were slow and that\u2019s something we have to change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also stressed that Panathinaikos still needs to improve its collective defensive reactions despite its strong start to the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peppe Poeta was disappointed after another close loss for Olimpia Milano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of the guys, we fought hard. Unfortunately, it\u2019s the second game this week that we\u2019ve lost in the final possessions. We probably deserved to win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poeta pointed to consistency as Milan\u2019s main issue: \u201cConsistency is what wins games. You have to play for 40 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crvena Zvezda dominated Maccabi Tel Aviv 100-78 after a spectacular offensive start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe said before the game that if you make more than 12 threes against Maccabi, you have a very good chance of winning. We already had 10 at halftime. Everything looks easier when you shoot like that,\u201d Navarro said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oded Kattash offered a much harsher assessment of Maccabi\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt halftime I said it was embarrassing. We weren\u2019t ready. From the beginning we simply weren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Maccabi coach also took responsibility: \u201cWe started terribly, we weren\u2019t aggressive and after five minutes we had already abandoned our game plan. Obviously, I\u2019m responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Valencia defeated Fenerbahce, and Xavi Albert emphasized the importance of the result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very important win, not only because it adds another victory. The way it came and the opponent we beat give it a lot of value.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Albert also praised Valencia\u2019s defensive growth, rebounding and ability to withstand Fenerbahce\u2019s fourth-quarter comeback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following Baskonia\u2019s 104-86 loss to Real Madrid, Velimir Perasovic acknowledged Real\u2019s superiority and admitted his team lacked some of the energy shown in previous games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also pointed to injuries and the lack of continuity in practice as major obstacles. Asked about the market, Perasovic summed up Baskonia\u2019s search with a joke: \u201cWe want to buy good, nice and cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pedro Mart\u00ednez praised Real Madrid after its fifth consecutive EuroLeague win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe played a good game,\u201d he said, highlighting the team\u2019s ball movement and its ability to read Baskonia\u2019s different defensive looks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Mart\u00ednez also played down the winning streak: \u201cWe don\u2019t think we are superior to anyone.\u201d Real, he stressed, still has plenty of room to improve and must keep its feet on the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Post-game reactions from EuroLeague Round 8 featuring Peppe Poeta, Zeljko Obradovic, Ibon Navarro, Oded Kattash, Xavi Albert, Velimir Perasovic and Pedro Mart\u00ednez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":414961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-556837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-euroleague"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/11\/DE5_4198.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556838,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556837\/revisions\/556838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556837"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=556837"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=556837"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=556837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}