Homecourt advantage: to most people, that is just a basketball term, something that gets thrown around when people jockey for position and need extra motivation for another regular season game. But when you experience it, like we do as players, it is a huge obstacle that is hard to overcome. All season long, teams play to have homecourt advantage once the playoffs come around. We do not just play a regular season and then crown the champion, like in soccer. In basketball, the real season starts when the playoffs begin. Now, it is crunch time and the excitement builds exponentially.

What is homecourt advantage? My team, Asseco Prokom Gdynia, experienced it in the last two games in Piraeus against Olympiacos. Homecourt advantage is 15,000 roaring fans. It’s a bus forgetting to pick you up before the game at the hotel. It's an atmosphere that pushes you to get that one extra loose ball. Homecourt advantage wins close games.

My team played great basketball for two nights. We started the series with an 11-0 run and kept playing great basketball for the entire two games. We defended well and played good on offense, but we did not come away with a win. Olympiacos played equally as good as we did, but in the end they played at home and had the little bit of extra luck that was needed to beat us. What do we need to change now? I say that we need to just keep fighting and turn the next two home games into great basketball games, which our fans and we can remember for a long time to come.

In the NBA, homecourt advantage in the playoffs has produced a 75-percent winning percentage for the host team. That would put us in the driver's seat now for the next two games here in Gdynia,... more

 Well it has been a while since I last wrote for the Euroleague website. Before I talked about the German national team and our way to the Olympics, then the experience of my first Euroleague season with Joventut and now I am back to tell you about Assecco Prokom Gdynia, probably the biggest surprise of this years Euroleague.

After my move from Spain to Poland many people asked me why I did it. The answer was easy: I wanted to play in the most competitive league in Europe, the Euroleague. I came to a team that had kept most of their players from last year and it took me a while to really land in Gdynia. I had to work my way into a good team that had won the polish Championship last year. Even though I struggled in the beginning, I have been able to find my role and contribute to the team's performance, especially in the Top 16.

Even though Prokom qualified for the Top 16 last year, we were not a shoe-in to do it again this year. We actually had to fight until the last game against Khimki to qualify, but nevertheless we made it. To be perfectly honest, I think we were the only ones who believed we could make it to the Playoffs, but when we beat Unicaja in Malaga, we put our name on the map. Then were able to wow even more people when we ended CSKA's 10 game winning streak on our home court.

Now we are here, the Quarterfinal Playoffs, a feat not accomplished easily, to go up against one... more