Chus Mateo: “We’ll keep fighting to get to more finals”
“In the second half we thought we could get back into it, but we missed free throws and rushed some things,” said the coach.
Chus Mateo reflected on the Copa del Rey final between Real Madrid and Unicaja: “They played better than us. We came to the Cup very excited having played two very good games. You could see that the effort we had made took its toll on us a little bit in this game. We didn't defend the same and Unicaja were able to set the physical bar very high. They were very successful in key moments. Perry had an extraordinary game and we weren't able to stop Taylor. They disrupted our attack and we lost 17 turnovers, which is a lot in a final“.
Mistakes
”We thought we could get back into it in the second half, but we missed free throws and our anxiousness forced us into mistakes because we wanted to get ahead. We're sorry for our fans. We made it to the final, but we couldn't win the title. It's a more complicated year than others because we have a few more deficits. But we have to keep competing“.
Losses
”There were some pretty silly losses in the first half. We were the team that lost the fewest balls in the entire league and we’ve got to keep working on this”.
Offensive efficiency
“We were hoping that some of our players who normally are potent scorers would show up. We haven't been able to find an offensive leader who could come to the fore. We need to work more on this squad. We weren’t as inspired as the guys from the other team.”
What does this team need to change?
“We have our strengths. We have probably lost some physicality. I'm not making excuses but we're really missing Deck, he is a cornerstone of the team. We will continue to compete to reach more finals. To win titles you have to get to finals and we keep doing it, even this year”.