Jasikevicius: “Panathinaikos deserves respect – We were miserable in attack”

The team’s bad offensive image was mainly attributed to Sarunas Yasikevicius her Fenerbahce defeat by Panathinaikos in the semi-final of the Berlin Final 4.

“Panathinaikos was more… itself than us. They deserve a lot of respect. But our players also deserve respect for the season they did and reached the Final 4. Our defense worked quite well, but unfortunately in attack we were miserable. We didn’t move the ball well and when we did we didn’t make the shots. We were very static. It’s a tough defeat but we have to keep our heads up. This defeat hurt, but we have to stand up“, initially emphasized the Lithuanian coach.

“When you lose a game like that it’s not one thing’s fault. We weren’t great defensively, but we were good enough in that part to win. We kept the Sluka-Lessor partnership down, but we have to look at other things we didn’t do right. In difficult situations we didn’t turn the ball over well, but we went to a lot of dribbling, we didn’t manage to take advantage of the changes in defense. We didn’t, even though Slukas and Nunn aren’t the tallest players. I think we have very good players, I knew Fener could go to the Final 4 and I believe they could go to the final and win the title. When you get here you are two wins away from the title. Unfortunately we did not present our best face“, he added.

“We are not allowed at this level to have a 25 minute delay in the game. It’s something unprecedented. But we cannot use that as an excuse. The last thing we’re going to do here is make excuses“, he concluded, referring to the delay in the start of the match.