The Real Madrid basketball coach, Chus Mateobelieves that they will have a “option to win” this Thursday the second game of the Euroleague playoff against Partizan if they offer the same “attitude and effort” as the first, and stated that “The heads have to be prepared to fight to the maximum again.” “It is an important day. The playoff is the hardest time of the year and all the games are difficult, butBut if our attitude and effort is the same as the first game and we work together, we will have a chance to win”, Mateo warned in statements to the club’s official media.
The Madrid coach recalled that these qualifying rounds “are long”. “We only have to think about the next game and we are going to try to take a step in the right direction. We had a lot of help from the fans and we will have the same, and the dedication of the players is never in doubt. If we have something in our heads when the game ends, it is that we have nothing left to give and we did it, the heads have to be prepared to fight to the maximum again”, he stressed.
The Madrid coach did not hide that “the way it hurts” in which they lost the first game, giving “a lot of credit” to Kevin Punter, “who puts that shot with Yabusele on top, fully punctuated and well defended”, and asked to “recover as soon as possible.” Mateo acknowledged that Walter Tavares’ physical problem “disrupted the plans a bit”, but he insisted on the “attitude” of his players that gave them the option of victory “against all odds”. “We fought, we fought and we had the option until the end, we were even able to close it a little earlier,” he said.
“We also had bad luck at some point with a triple that bounced three times at the rim or some foul that we received a little difficult to understand in the last minute. In any case, I have nothing to reproach the effort of the team and how the pavilion was encouraging us”, he declared.
For his part, Argentine forward Gabriel Deck, the team’s most outstanding player with a PIR of 33 in the first game, remarked that they must be “focused until the end.” “The first game could go either way and it was decided on the last play. You have to think about the positive things we did, correct the mistakes and forget about the game the other day to be up to the task ”, he demanded.
The madridista appealed to “intensity”. “We don’t have to despair and try to be calm, that’s where the game will happen again. They will play in the same way or even more aggressive because the victory has given them confidence, but we have to be aggressive and play our game.”he pointed.
“With so many games in a playoff, you can’t think much about the last game, you have to try to focus on the next one. We all like to play these kinds of games and these moments, so we will try to try to make everything right. All matches are final now and we treat it as such,” Deck concluded.
