After losing this Thursday by 70-64 at the Unics Kazan court, Barça coach Sarunas Jasikevicius lamented that shooting guard Cory Higgins, author of 17 points, and center Brandon Davies, with 16, were the only “solid” players in the azulgrana box.
“(Cory) Higgins was excellent. (Brandon Davies), solid. But I can’t find a third player who was solid. With two players is not enough to win in Kazan, with the great defensive numbers that the Unics have. We weren’t good enough“, lamented the Lithuanian coach at a press conference.
In addition, Jasikevicius was satisfied with the integration of the recovered Nick Calathes and Cory Higgins: “We are very happy that they are back and some of them played a great match today. We will suffer with them so that they recover the rhythm because they are very important to us“.
Regarding the Greek-American point guard, the coach assessed that “he was excellent in defense“although in attack”he needs time, which is normal with players recovering from injuryOn the other hand, Jasikevicius said that the absence of the team’s star, power forward Nikola Mirotic, “can’t be an excuse“ to explain the defeat since “Barça has a great squad even without Mirotic“.
Likewise, the Barça coach declared that Unics Kazan “it was a better team, more physical” in a very even match defensively and regretted the unforced errors made by his players. “When we try to run in the fourth quarter, we made many avoidable mistakes. We also have a lot of problems fouling shooters, which is unacceptable. Today we fouled the shooters four times. Easy points make the difference in big matches“, lamented the Baltic coach.
By last, Jasikevicius acknowledged that Barça is “a little off our pace so we need to keep working that’s all“.