Ibon Navarro appeared at a press conference after the immeasurable victory of Unicaja to place the sixth victory in the Endesa League’s box. All this against a very powerful rival like Basquet Girona, whom the cajista coach has valued for putting those in green and purple in trouble until the last second.
Balance of the match
“Congratulate Girona not for the season, but for the basketball, the style. They are faithful to what they want to do. It is going to be very difficult to beat them here. It is going to be difficult to beat them, but here it is more. With the percentages that we have had and the problems we have had in the first half to defend the first 6/8 seconds of their attack, We had to make an extra effort in the second to be able to get back inside, especially with the 17-point disadvantage. We found a way to play, we learned to play against them as the game went on. “We ended up forcing them to attack statically and controlling them very well.”
Drastic change
“We have not made any speech, what we have spoken is that nothing was happening that surprised us. We had to defend the first 5/6 seconds and we were not doing it. We had to try to collapse the paint so they wouldn’t penetrate and we weren’t doing it. We had to try to control their offensive rebound and we weren’t doing it. In the end, That you don’t score threes or free throws doesn’t depend on your desire., intensity or your energy. It depends on the success. Seeing that they were scoring so easily makes you more anxious when shooting because it forces you to score. You fail more. The way to have less anxiety in attack was to be more solid in defense. Leaving them at 30 points in the second half has a lot of merit.”
Rhythm of Girona
“It hasn’t been a surprise. They play like that. If you’re not prepared… it’s not a surprise, they play like that. The problem is that we haven’t been prepared to play against this intensity with which they have played.”
Eighth victory in a row
We are closer to losing a safe game. Winning away from home is very difficult. Now we have a week to prepare for the next game at WiZink. You have to go game by game, always compete. If you always compete, you have a chance of winning the game like today. We’ve just started and there’s a lot left.