No team wins the EuroLeague twice in a row by chance. Jasikevicius knows this perfectly, champion with Maccabi in 2004 and 2005, who warned of the great difficulties they will have to overcome to beat Anadolu Efes on his track. And it is that the Turks are not only the current champion of the competition, but they are one of the teams that has best strengthened this summer. They are not going through their best streak of results, but Saras does not trust a hair: “It seems that they always start like this, then they raise their level of play a lot. They are quite comfortable in this situation. You don’t have to look at the latest results, they have players who have been together for years, deciding games with a lot of talent. I will have to suffer for sure”, he warned in the preview of the game. Efes maintains doubts about Larkin, who could reappear against the Catalans, something that does not change Barça’s plans much: “I don’t know if he will play. Tonight I’m calling Ataman to see, but I don’t think he’ll pick up the phone”, joked Jasikevicius.
The jokes, however, quickly died down when talking about the qualities of Efes. “When someone wins the Euroleague twice, they are the team to beat. You have to respect the champions”, he said before going on to analyze the Turkish team: “They are a team in which everyone knows what they have to do. Much of their game goes through Micic and Clyburn, Beaubois and Bryant add up a lot of points and Pleiss or Zizic can hurt you”.
Regarding the good momentum of the team, which comes from winning on the Maccabi track, he recalled that “we have done things well” but that evolution cannot stop here: “The team that progresses the most during the season will be the one with the best chance of winning.”. Mirotic will not travel, but neither will Kuric, whose attendance at the match was scheduled: he felt discomfort in his right shoulder at the end of training and is awaiting medical tests.
Apart from the Barça coach, Sertac Sanli, a player who until two seasons ago was a member of Anadolu Efes, also appeared in the previous one. The Turk sent a message of encouragement to those who suffered the attack in Istanbul this weekend and recalled that it is always special for him to play in Turkey and against his former team.