Ready to ride the green wave to Athens

May 25, 2012

Carlos Cabezas

Let me tell you about the mood in Malaga after we made the Final Four. People are really excited! It was a dream come true for a lot of people around here, not just the players and the club, but the fans who have been supporting us for such a long time. Maybe for people waiting for a reason to visit Athens, too! We're bringing with us our own "marea verde": that's "green wave" in Spanish. I know that Panathinaikos will have a lot of its own green fans there, but I know that when we see our own, coming all the way there from Spain, it will be an inspiration for us. Right now I think there are more than 700 fans from Malaga going, and one thing I know is that they are going to enjoy themselves. They were a big part of helping us just make the Top 16 after a tough regular season and they pumped us up in the rounds after that so we won everything at home and made it this far. They deserve a great weekend in Athens, and even though we have to go against the current champions, we plan to do everything to make them happy.

Some of the people who are traveling with us are our families. Almost all of the players are bringing some people, at the very least their wives or girlfriends. We'll be arriving two days before the game, so they can have extra time to see the beautiful city of Athens. The Final Four is something to enjoy for everyone who can be there. I know from experience that having family and friends around for something like this is great for the players, too. At the World Championships in Japan last summer, all of us on the Spanish national team had the chance to bring our families, and of course, that turned out great for us. It's not very often that you can share something like this with the people closest to you, and far from being a distraction or anything, I think it really helps the players. It makes you feel good the whole time to know that they can enjoy this unique experience with you. It's like a one-time moment that you might never go through again, and being able to share it with them makes it even more special. You can tell while you're going through it how much it helps, because it makes you feel good, and that can only be positive.

Let's not forget about the basketball side of things. You might already know that we have some injuries, particularly the one to Dani Santiago, who has been our main man in the paint all season, especially in terms of scoring. It's true that our style will have to change at least a little without him doing what he does so well inside. Even though we believe in our other guys, we don't have Dani's height to rely on now. We're going to have to do more with the ball on the perimeter, play better pick-and-roll and better one-on-one. But we have a lot of outside players who know what to do and we've already played several games like this, so we are starting to understand what we have to do better. We just hope it keeps working, because really we had to change our style without a natural center to put into the paint. Like I said, though, we have guys whom we have a lot of faith in, and we thing that if we take the initiative with our aggressiveness, we will be fine.

POSTED BY

Carlos Cabezas - Malaga, Spain

DATE:

Thursday, April 26, 2007