Sarunas Jasikevicius press conference quotes

Congratulations to Madrid. I thought on our part clearly there was a huge lack of attention to details. A lot of things we set out to do, we did not do. It’s very difficult to understand the Final Four coach going into the halftime being up 11 points but saying to the players that we're not doing good. But this was my speech at halftime. I thought we were not doing good. I didn't like how we were playing. We made some shots and Madrid missed some shots, but usually in basketball over 40 minutes these situations will equal out. We were not ready to sacrifice, we made all the fouls on shot situations.
At the end, Madrid did make shots. If you want to play in a championship game and you give up 52 points in the second half…I don’t know. I missed a lot of extra professionalism and sacrificing. Huge disappointment for us, there’s no question. I think we’re a better team, but we're not going to be playing the final, that's the reality. We scored 83 points which is enough to win any game, especially with the defense we normally have. But Madrid scored 86, an incredible total, 52 in the second half. Unacceptable. In the third quarter we gifted everything. This happens to us a lot.
Related Videos
A team with a lot of talent but allowing 52 points in the second half…this is not serious. This has to hurt a lot and I'm a bit tired of saying that we're gifting things. It's very difficult to win titles, but I'm tired of saying it's more of the same. Over the course of 40 minutes I did not manage to prepare my team for what was coming. Always the coach is the most responsible. Jokubaitis was fine, he came out and played his minutes. A couple of times he didn't make the right choices. This is the Final Four, the big boys have got to play. Games are usually decided by the big boys and some x-factors.
These games are decided by details and 86 points…we had the ability to take away 10, but we didn’t do it. Madrid played a little different than they did in the Copa del Rey, with less big lineups, putting Yabusele on Calathes and Deck on Mirotic and switching everything. We scored 83 points but you have to defend, you have to sacrifice. We're always talking with this team about the killer instinct; we're not killers. We're not capable of killing off teams or killing off series. It's more of the same. I've been signing the same song for a year and a half, and it’s difficult to accept for me. We have to sleep and lift ourselves. It's a very difficult defeat and everyone has to look in the mirror. We still have a very important title to play for and we have to learn. We’ll see.