The visiting team’s head coach and top performer lambasted a poor defensive performance despite beating Hamburg.
Narrow win left Joventut’s Ante Tomic and Carles Duran fuming
Joventut Badalona edged closer to sealing a BKT EuroCup playoff berth after a somewhat fortuitous 90-96 win at Veolia Towers Hamburg left the Spanish side needing one more win from its remaining four regular season games to be mathematically sure of advancing.
Joventut’s passage was put on hold by Umana Reyer Venice grinding out a 106-96 overtime home win over Besiktas Emlakjet Istanbul in the late Group A fixture, keeping alive the Italian side’s hopes of sneaking into the postseason.
The team from Badalona racked up its sixth successive victory and one would think that’s quite an accomplishment after a patchy start to the regular season littered with shock defeats.
Joventut is now sitting pretty in the playoff picture with a 9-5 record, but head coach Carles Duran and center Ante Tomic felt the slender victory at Hamburg (2-11), left a lot to be desired.
In fact, they were both livid with a poor defensive display which allowed the home team to score an avalanche of points by Joventut’s high standards.
“What didn’t make a difference today was our defense,” said Tomic, who clinched the game for Joventut having scored the last 6 points of the enthralling contest.
“Impossible to concede 90 plus points every other game and expect to win, but we had a good day on offense and I guess that decided in the end. We scored a lot and had good percentages. We lacked intensity and anticipation on the defensive end,” added the Croatian big man, the game’s top performer with 21 points and 10 rebounds.
Duran was just as unforgiving in his scathing remarks. “We played a bad game and we have to improve so much on defense because Hamburg scored too many points,” Duran stressed. “We played with patience and our talent came to the fore in the fourth quarter to help us win the game, but we need more for the future.”
Duran duly heaped praise on 36-year-old veteran Tomic, who stepped up to the plate with the composure and mettle akin to a consistent performer who once plied his trade at the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona for a full decade.
“It’s clear he is a very good player and in the home stretch he was calm and composed,” said Duran, before pouring more scorn on his team’s nonchalant defending. “I can’t stress enough, we need to improve on defense because we conceded 90 points and that’s a terrible tally for us.”
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Hamburg coach Benka Barloschky had mixed feelings about his team’s display, as Hamburg’s valiant effort came to nothing. It was an all too familiar story for his men, who are still in the fledgling stages of developing a killer instinct and the ability to turn tough losses into wins.
“We lacked execution late in the game,” said Barloschky. “Against a team of such quality, every possession matters and little details decide close matchups. They made plays, we didn’t. We couldn’t stop fouling late on, they had Tomic and they were able to close out the game.”
“We’re still learning, but I am super proud of the team. We kept it close, had a chance to win it and it’s a big improvement. We don’t want to beat ourselves up, but we can’t get complacent either. You can’t be satisfied when you lose a game because we want to be competitive.”