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Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The only moment that matters is now
Hey everyone, it's been awhile since I last blogged, and some interesting things have happened. Some funny ones, too, like me getting locked in our locker room at halftime of a Spanish League game in Vitoria against Tau Ceramica. Here's another: My hometown of Marbella, Spain, put me in their walk of fame! They had a ceremony for me and put me right there alongside Antonio Banderas the actor and Julio Iglesias the singer. I'm almost goin' Hollywood! I can't act nor sing much, but if I can help bring Unicaja to the Final Four, who knows? Maybe I'll be singing all the way to Athens! Of course, it doesn't get more interesting than the last playoff game of the Euroleague, do or die, with the chance to reach the Final Four. I have played in some special games before, but this one on Thursday against Barca is very, very special for me personally, because it's the the first time I have a chance to make the Final Four, which is a dream for any player in Europe and certainly one of my biggest ones, too. After having won most of the other trophies I have played for until now, the chance to win the Euroleague trophy is the biggest one missing for me. To have that chance, we have to win on Thursday. We had the chance in Barcelona last week, too, but the difference now is that we will be on our own floor in Malaga. I have played for Unicaja my whole career, so I know how unique this moment is for everyone in the club. And I can say that all of us - the players, the club staff and the public - are looking forward to Thursday with all the enthusiasm in the world. You can feel it whether in the locker room or out in the street in Malaga running into fans. Everybody wants this victory and together we are going to do everything possible to win and go to Athens together! If we make it, I'll have to return the favor to Tau and lock somebody up at halftime!
As you possibly have heard, we might have to play against Barcelona on Thursday without Dani Santiago, who is always a key player for us inside, and has been especially important in helping us get this far in the Euroleague. If he can't play, it will be a case of the rest of us having to multiply our confidence in order to make up for his absence. It reminds me a little of the situation with Pau Gasol that we had on the Spanish national team in the World Championships final last year. You are faced with a sudden injury, and there are only two ways to react: feel sorry for yourselves or use it as extra motivation. Of course, Pau was incredibly important for our national team, but we just used his injury in the semifinal as inspiration to win for him. As our warmup t-shirts said that day, "Pau plays, too", and for Unicaja this week Dani will be with us even if he can't be on the court. Of course, we are lucky now to have a guy who we were missing all season, Marcus Brown, back with us for this series. His return gave us extra motivation in the first game, and his experience playing at this stage of the season should help again in the third game.
Of course, one of the guys we have to stop on Barca - maybe THE guy, considering the way he has played so far - is Juan Carlos Navarro, my teammate on the national team. I get asked since we won the World Championships together if it's strange going up against my national teammates in big games like Thursday's. The truth is that it has always been that way, since we were all European Junior and World Junior champions together and then started going pro one by one. There are, of course, great memories we have together and I love playing on the national team, because we're all friends, but the friendship ends when you step on the court to play AGAINST each other. We all have professional and personal interest in doing our best for our clubs, so for those days when our opponents are our teammates from the summer, you forget your friends for awhile. I am playing for something this week that I never had the chance to do before, and all that matters now is winning this game and going to the Final Four!
POSTED BY
Carlos Cabezas - Malaga
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