On schedule, in Zagreb and beyond
I am back after hoping in my preseason blogs that we could help to lift Cibona up again. I am happy to say that right now, everything is good and we've become what we wanted to be in the beginning of the season, and this is a competitive team. We feel we are now on the level where we can compete with any team in Europe, so that is something we can be happy about. What's really interesting is that maybe two games we lost gave me the strongest sense that we have reached where we needed to be. We knew we would probably be good at home. We have a tough court and always have, but in previous years we didn't manage to win even one game on the road. This year, we won our first one away, at Le Mans, but honestly we didn't play very well. Not our top level, let's say. But we won, and proved something important, that we can win away even when we are not playing so good. That helped our confidence. Then we played on the road at two very tough courts, in Malaga and Tel Aviv. We were there to the end, close to winning both games, and that was a step forward. We were competitive, even on the road. We didn't win either, but especially in Tel Aviv, we had a chance to win. After that game in Tel Aviv, I think we realized that against good teams on tough courts, we can now compete on the same level. We knew we were now good enough as a team, solid enough and consistent enough, to play with anybody. I am happy about it, of course, and I just hope it continues.
If we talk about what has a happened to make our team better, I think the main reason we are competitive now is we don't depend on one or two players. We are a group in which many players can score the crucial points or make the crucial plays to win. And that, to me, is the mark of a good Euroleague team. Although we aren't yet at their level, someone like CSKA has the same dynamic. They are not about one player, but about the whole team, and any of six, seven or more players could prove to be the crucial one in a game. You never know. The other thing helping us is our practices. They are the basis of everything, and have become very strong. Every player on the team has a chance to prove himself in practice and that has had a positive effect on everybody. This should come as no surprise considering who our coach is: Velimir Perasovic. First of all, you have to remember that many of us grew up watching him when he played. We all knew he was a great professional and a hard worker. He has brought the same attitude as a coach that he had as a player. He's a coach who is a fighter. He doesn't give up, ever. He's always searching for a win, he wants to improve and wants to push us to improve our game everyday. Right now, that's his biggest quality, his ability to push us. He's never satisfied, always hungry, and he wants us to become hungry like him.
It turns out that our first truly must-win game of this season came against an old friend of our team, Chris Warren, who played for Cibona two-and-a-half seasons. But friendships aside, that was a hugely important game, because his new team, Avellino, was and remains our direct opponent for the Top 16. Knowing we had to win that game made it tougher mentally than it was in terms of basketball. Despite the pressure, we were always in charge of the game, up by plus-10 at one point, but of course Avellino is a very talented offensive team with great shooters, so they came back, as we expected. Still, we were in control the whole time, playing our style of tough defense, so it was only a matter of time - overtime, in this case. In the end, it was very important for us that we still managed to win under pressure like that. Now, we are not looking too far in the future. The only thing for sure is that want to play and win our next game against Olympiacos. We know we have chances not only to qualify, but to do so in a high position, as high as we can. The Top 16 is all great teams, and the higher you finish the regular season, the more of them you can avoid. Even if we qualify now for the Top 16, we won't say we did our job and relax. Now, we are hungry. There's a great attitude in Zagreb now. Everybody is talking about basketball and wanting to go to the games. They want to see the best European basketball for as long as possible here - and we plan to give them that!
POSTED BY
DAVOR KUS - Zagreb, Croatia
DATE:
Monday, December 15, 2008