Jasikevicius: “Anadolu Efes is very dangerous” 13

Zalgiris faces its second double EuroLeague week on Tuesday evening, as they take on one of the league’s hottest teams – Anadolu Efes, who’ve now won seven in a row.

“They’re dangerous with everything. Their biggest strength is the fact that they’ve got a lot of creators, all through the 1-2-3 positions. What’s worse for us, is that they’ve been playing together for years now. They know each other very well. They’ve been working with the same coach, in the same system. They’re playing beautiful basketball. If the ball starts moving, they hurt you with threes. It might just be the best team in Europe at the moment.

Anadolu Efes has been in Kaunas since Sunday and prepares to take on Zalgiris with a league-best 11-2 record at hand.

– How much more dangerous is Larkin compared to before this season?
– Larkin started playing impressively in the second part of the season last year. Now he’s continuing.

– What were your thoughts after that 49-point show?
– All kinds of thoughts. Hopefully that doesn’t happen tomorrow. Some of those shots were very well defended by Bayern. Some of them were wide open, from all the playmaking from Micic, from Simon. Some of the keys are limiting their team play, and forcing them to take us on individually. We tried practicing in that regard yesterday.

– Does he remind you of Mike James in a way?
– They’re players of a similar style. But again, the guy is playing for the same coach for the second year, and that’s important. For this day, they’re all playing as if they were together for 10 years.

– You mentioned forcing them to take opponents on individually, what other weapons do you have at your disposal?
– We need to play our own brand of basketball, take away their threes, create shots for ourselves. We need to play bravely, physically, so they don’t feel very good. We keep talking about the same thing. I think we’re doing it, but we can’t retain concentration for longer periods of time. If we could, we’d be in the game.

– During this 7-game losing streak, 4 of them were practically a shot away. Have you ever considered psychology becoming a factor?
– We’re working in the same way. As for psychology, I can tap on the shoulder, I can yell at someone, but in the end the players have to deal with some of the things on their own, especially the veterans. They’ve seen everything. There are a lot of young players who… I wouldn’t say are still in shock, since we’re already in December, but they’re still getting used to it. Patience, patience, patience and keep working, keep believing. We lose on average by one possession. Every player needs to take away one tactical mistake, and we get back 10 possessions, which is crazy.

– It’s your first streak like this. As a coach, what new experiences, thoughts in this period.
– I don’t think it changes whether you win 7 or lose 7. Simply, you come in and work and prepare for the next game. What more we can do, how we play. How we can give the team the best chance to win. Those losses are behind us. As I always say, it’s next game, next quarter, next possession. That’s how you get through the entire season.

– During this streak, it’s obvious that the moods aren’t the brightest in the team. But is there some signs of concerns or all is normal about moods like this?
– You know, from my side, from the players side, the task is the same. It’s a fact that the moods can’t be good. If it were good moods, I think it’d be terrible. Moods aren’t good, but it’s logical. But on the other hand, they’re fired up, ready for battle. And the team is playing good basketball. But there’s something stopping us. Either a bad stretch on defense or just missing shots.