EuroLeague Round 8 is in the books, with coaches across the competition offering plenty of reaction after another packed slate of games. From Dimitris Itoudis after Hapoel\u2019s 118-point performance to Sarunas Jasikevicius\u2019 criticism, plus Alex Mumbru, Tomas Masiulis, Peppe Poeta, Aleksander Sekulic and Georgios Bartzokas: here are the post-game comments from the coaches who spoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Xavi Pascual:<\/strong> the Dubai coach pointed mainly to his team\u2019s defense as the reason for the loss, stressing that scoring 93 points is not enough when you allow 99. Dubai managed to get back into the game several times, but mistakes in key moments prevented the comeback from being completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aleksander Sekulic:<\/strong> \u201cIt was an important win because it came on the road against an opponent that was going to fight as hard as possible to get a home victory. In the end, we found a way to win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Barcelona coach emphasized the value of earning another road victory against a Bayern team still searching for its first EuroLeague home win of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ibon Navarro:<\/strong> \u201cWe played an extraordinary first half, but everything started with our defense. When you shoot the three that well, everything becomes easier.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crvena Zvezda had already made 10 three-pointers by halftime, using its hot shooting to build a commanding lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oded Kattash:<\/strong> \u201cAt halftime I said it was embarrassing. We weren\u2019t ready and from the beginning we simply weren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Maccabi coach took responsibility for a poor start that had already put his team in a very difficult position within the opening minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zeljko Obradovic:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019m proud because we fought until the end. We tried to play our basketball, but we were slow and that\u2019s something we need to change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Panathinaikos coach also stressed the need for better collective reactions on defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Peppe Poeta:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019m proud of the guys, we fought hard. 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 For the Milan coach, consistency over the full 40 minutes remains one of the main areas to improve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Xavi Albert:<\/strong> \u201cIt\u2019s an important win not only because of the standings, but because of the opponent and the way we achieved it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Valencia coach highlighted his team\u2019s defensive performance and work on the glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sarunas Jasikevicius:<\/strong> the Fenerbahce coach was highly critical of the physical difference between the teams, especially on the boards, describing Valencia\u2019s 21 offensive rebounds as unacceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Velimir Perasovic:<\/strong> the Baskonia coach acknowledged Real Madrid\u2019s superiority and pointed to the difficulties caused by injuries and the lack of continuity in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked about the market, Perasovic summed it up with a joke: \u201cWe want to buy good, nice and cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pedro Martinez:<\/strong> \u201cWe played a good game,\u201d the Real Madrid coach said, praising his team\u2019s ball movement and reads against Baskonia\u2019s different defensive coverages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also played down the winning streak: \u201cWe don\u2019t think we\u2019re superior to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dusan Alimpijevic:<\/strong> the Besiktas coach praised his players\u2019 effort after a game that remained close deep into the fourth quarter, stressing that his team kept fighting despite injuries and fatigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Georgios Bartzokas:<\/strong> \u201cIt was a very important road win in a fantastic atmosphere. Both teams fought hard and both had important absences to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Olympiacos coach highlighted his team\u2019s 26 assists<\/strong>, its EuroLeague season high: \u201cThat shows we want to play together and with team spirit. In the end, that is crucial if you want to win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bartzokas also discussed the depth of his roster following Nikola Milutinov\u2019s absence: \u201cWe have five centers, so losing one is not such a big problem. On the perimeter we are missing three players, and that is also why we signed Konchar. With this schedule, you need around 15 players.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the closing stages, he added: \u201cWhen the game became close, we relied on our defense and found some important baskets. That was the key.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dimitris Itoudis:<\/strong> the Hapoel coach gave major credit to his players for controlling the game through defense and pace, while maintaining focus despite a huge lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pablo Laso:<\/strong> \u201cIn the first half, we didn\u2019t reach the level of toughness and competitiveness the game required.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Efes coach also acknowledged Hapoel\u2019s exceptional shooting night, led by Antonio Blakeney, while pointing to turnovers and mistakes that prevented his team from mounting a comeback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tony Parker:<\/strong> the ASVEL coach highlighted the character shown by his team in recovering from an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit, describing the win over Partizan as one of ASVEL\u2019s best defensive performances of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joan Penarroya:<\/strong> \u201cIn the last four minutes we stopped playing our normal basketball, especially offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Partizan coach ruled out fatigue as the main reason for the collapse: \u201cEuroLeague games last 40 minutes. We have to learn from our mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alex Mumbru:<\/strong> the Virtus coach stressed that after a good opening quarter, his team gradually lost control and allowed Zalgiris to impose its preferred rhythm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mumbru identified poor three-point shooting, Zalgiris\u2019 physicality, low-post play and rebounding as some of the main reasons for the defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tomas Masiulis:<\/strong> \u201cWe have to stay in games through our defense, because offensively some days the shots go in and some days they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Zalgiris coach praised his team\u2019s transition defense and work on the boards, adding that he felt the victory was fully deserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Round 8 produced several recurring themes: physicality, rebounding, consistency and defense<\/strong>. Jasikevicius and Mumbru focused heavily on the physical impact of their opponents, Poeta and Penarroya stressed the need to maintain the same level for all 40 minutes, while Itoudis, Masiulis and Bartzokas all pointed to defense and collective play as decisive factors in their wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Post-game reactions from EuroLeague Round 8 featuring Bartzokas, Itoudis, Laso, Jasikevicius, Poeta, Mumbru, Masiulis, Sekulic and more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":409687,"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-557236","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\/10\/euroleague-logo-1.webp","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557236","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=557236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":557237,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557236\/revisions\/557237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557236"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=557236"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=557236"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=557236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bayern Munich-Barcelona 84-88<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Crvena Zvezda-Maccabi Tel Aviv 100-78<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Panathinaikos-Olimpia Milano 80-75<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Valencia-Fenerbahce 86-78<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Baskonia-Real Madrid 86-104<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Besiktas-Olympiacos 73-81<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Hapoel Tel Aviv-Anadolu Efes 118-88<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
ASVEL-Partizan 82-75<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Virtus Bologna-Zalgiris Kaunas<\/h3>\n\n\n\n