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Ready, willing and able

Tue, 01 May 2007 11:45:00 GMT

We are all excited to be on our way to Athens. The mood on the team right now is very relaxed. We know that we have a semifinal that's going to be very difficult, very complicated. CSKA has a variety of very important players at every position. They will all be difficult and we have to be at our best against all of them, so I wouldn't talk about one player or another. They are all good. The one highlight you can say about CSKA is the defense. They are famous for that. But we think we play pretty good defense, too, and that's what we are working on, too. If our defense is good, we will have our options. If we can play good defense and get to the final quarter with the score as close as possible, I think the pressure will then be increasing on CSKA. This is a one-shot elimination game, and we all know from experience that a lot of things can happen. The key for us is to simply play our best, because even with our injuries, if we do that, we will be where we want to be, competing with the champions for the entire game. At the end, anything can happen.

Of course, we have not seen CSKA this year, but last year they were champions, too, and in the two games we played, they won at home and we won at home. That's just to say that we are not thinking of them as an unbeatable team for any reason. Last year's games don't matter now, of course, but we go into any game with high hopes and expectations. Any player loves this kind of challenge. If we had won a few with them in the past and they won a few with us, it's something that you might remember, but now it's the moment that counts. And I can assure you that all of us who will go on the court in Athens will be ready to play to the fullest, not because of whom we are facing, but because of the excitement of the moment and the great opportunity that is before us.

People ask if we have an advantage with Marcus Brown, and I think of course it is great to have him back for this. That's the same whether we were going to play CSKA or not. At the same time, he knows several of their players really well, and evidently, he is talking to our coach, Sergio Scariolo, for any information that could help us. That's also important because we're looking at new strategies, due to the fact that we have injuries to our big men. Of course, with Daniel Santiago not in the middle for us, our main producer there, we are going to have more responsibility on the perimeter. We have to be running pick-and-rolls well, looking for easy baskets when possible, but also keeping things simple. I think it's most important that we walk onto the floor at OAKA with clear minds about what we want to do. We have nothing to be nervous about if we are ready with our game plan and ready to perform. The mood of the team, as I said, is great. We are in this together and happy about that. We know what the challenge is and what it means. We have a lot of people helping us, and together with that effort and our confidence, we will be ready.

Ready to ride the green wave to Athens

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:56:34 GMT

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.

The only moment that matters is now

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:38:52 GMT

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...

Riding this wave to the end

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:15:52 GMT

Well, this is what it's all about. We have two games left to prove that we belong in the Top 16. A lot of people ask me how the same team can lose to Olimpija in Ljubljana by almost 30 points one week and be the first to beat Panathinaikos the next. There's no good answer, but that's the wave we have been riding all season. We have been very unpredictable, to say the least. We can play magnificently in some games and then turn around and do as bad as we did in Ljubljana or against Joventut earlier in the season. You'd have to say it's a matter of either going out concentrated and staying that way, or in the bad games, getting down and letting the score get completely away from us. In other words, it's the mental aspect that has been going up and down. When we are concentrating, we can certainly beat anyone, as we showed by defeating Barcelona in the Spanish League and then Panathinaikos last week. That says a lot about what we are capable of doing. We are all fighting to make sure everything comes together when we need it in these next two games, against Lottomatica Roma tomorrow and next week against Partizan in Belgrade. Now is the time, that's for sure.

We are optimistic, of course. I always am. But we also keep a lot of respect for the other teams, even though we defeated both of them. The fact that we won in Rome doesn't mean anything going into tomorrow's game. In that game, they just got Mire Chatman, who is doing well for them now, and didn't play with David Hawkins, who is back to playing like everyone knows he can. About Dejan Bodiroga, what can I say? Everyone knows he is a player who thrives in these circumstances. The fact that they are coming here after winning against Joventut in Badalona makes it clear: we cannot think back to when we beat them before, and can only think forward because we have to expect this to be the toughest game of the year - and be ready for that without depending on our homecourt advantage or anything else but playing better than they do tomorrow.

We got a new player, Marko Tusek, who might be a big help in this game against Roma, because he played with them for a few seasons recently. First of all, we like him for his experience and his ability to play a couple different position down low. He can jump into the rotation to help a lot of people, so that's an assett. You can see his experience, too, as already ha has adapted very well in a couple games with us. Can someone like him who knows the other team well help us scout them for tomorrow? Well, as I speak, we are still going to do our main scouting session, but I am sure that if he thinks that something he knows about them can help, he has talked with Sergio and we'll all know about it soon enough. I wouldn't say here of course if he did, but you can bet that a veteran's knowledge and experience can sometimes make the difference, even if it's a little thing. And with the importance of the game we have tomorrow, every little bit can make a difference.

In the same way I don't look back at the last Roma game, I don't think about the beginning of the season, when we lost two games in overtime and another at the buzzer, and how that influenced us getting here. We'll look...

Onward and upward in 2007

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 17:37:26 GMT

Back from the holidays, I'd like to say happy 2007 to everyone, and hope it's a good year for my team, too. In the old days, I heard that players had plenty time off during the holidays, but I can count the days off we had with three fingers...Christmas Eve, Christmas day and New Year's Eve. On January 1 we were at practice by the afternoon because we had a Spanish League game coming up. But we got to celebrate everything, and in Spain that means three different holidays, really: Christmas, New Year's and the Three Kings' Day, which is January 6. The whole country closes down for each of them. Because I am from this area, I lucky to have family and friends close by here in Malaga, so even though the basketball more or less keeps going, I get to fit in the family part of the holidays - and even a little rest - with no problem. And this year I was one of the kings myself! Florent Pietrus, Kostas Vasileiadis and I dressed up and delivered toys at a children's hospital that day, which we all enjoyed, which is the main thing want to do this time of year, give and enjoy!

I can say we are ready to start enjoying basketball, too, certainly more than before the holidays. As you know, we lost at home to Maccabi and then suffered a 53-point defeat against a team we know well, Joventut, in Badalona. We hit rock bottom in that one, and it hurt a lot. It was probably the worst loss and worst feeling of my whole career. But when you touch bottom, you have to bounce back, and we have started to do that. We haven't lost since, including a couple of 40-point wins in the Spanish League, and when we needed to beat Cibona by more than five, we were able to do that, too. So we had our downs and we're hoping we'll have our ups now and make the Top 16.

We understand that because of losing by more than 50 to Joventut, we can't hope that a points difference gets us to the Top 16. So today we left early for Ljubljana to play Union Olimpija knowing that, basically, we have to win all our games left to be where we want to be. That may seem like pressure, but we're not worried. We all know we can do it, especially with two of those games at home. But the only important one right now is the next one, which is why we're traveling early and will be ready on Wednesday for sure.

I don't forget that this time last year we were leading our group and headed into the Top 16 as one of the top-ranked teams. But I don't forget, either, that the Top 16 didn't go too well for us. Every season is different, and if last year we started very good, only to finish lower than we hoped for, we can hope this year will be the opposite. We have been played inconsistently and generated doubts so far, but I think we can see a stronger mentality on the team these days and we might be ready for big things. First we have to take care of the little ones, starting this week. We need the momentum and we can't look ahead until we get it and qualify for the Top 16.

Cabezas: 'We're on our way now'

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:57:16 GMT

I was never nervous about our situation, really. Honestly. I mean it. I am a player, and players won't admit that even if they were nervous. But now, after beating Lottomatica in Rome and Partizan at home, I'll teach you a Spanish word: tranquilo. That's how I feel, and it's no disrespect to any other teams. I feel we are on our way to the qualification, especially with four home games left in the regular season. Martin Carpena Arena is our house and we plan to make it work for us and for our fans to reach the Top 16. What we have been doing in order to win lately is playing defense better than before. The truth is we have to play that way. We have to make sure our defense closes down other teams, because right now we just aren't scoring a lot. We need the defense to keep the points down, but also to ignite the fastbreak, because we aren't getting easy points out of our offense, either. But like I said, I am confident that we are on our way - and I was never really worried anyway. Honestly.

What hasn't gone our way, however, is the injury to Marcus Brown now keeping him out indefinitely. Marcus, of course, was an important player for us, so the idea that he is going to be out for some time - and remember he was out when we lost our first three games - is going to make things more complicated. There are rumors out there that we are looking for another player and that may or may not be true, but the fact is that those of us who are here have to fill in for his absence. Especially those of us who play on the perimeter have to be ready not only to play more minutes without him, but to also produce in the extra time we're out there, to give 100 percent intensity for more minutes. We can't wait now for someone to arrive and help us.

Speaking of minutes, after I started the last couple of games, people ask me if it matters. Here's the answer: it doesn't matter at all to me. In the last few seasons, whether I was starting or not, I always got to play. In fact, in some seasons I have played more total time coming off the bench than I have as a starter. Sometimes it's Pepe Sanchez starting, sometimes it's me, and neither of us gives it any importance. I see it as an advantage of our team to have two good players at the same position who are pretty much interchangeable. It's the same work everyday whether you start or not. You just have to know to accept your role and be intelligent. We have always understood that, along with our coach, Sergio Scariolo, and if we play six minutes more or less, it depends mainly on how each of us is playing that day. Who starts has never mattered.

In fact, I had the best game of my career to start this season in Tel Aviv against Maccabi, and I didn't start that game, but I played 40-some minutes. In a couple days we play Maccabi at home, and for us, this becomes the next key game of the season. We have to make sure more than ever that no one wins in Martin Carpena but us. We were able to do it against Barcelona in our domestic game over the weekend. And if we do again this week against Maccabi, it will send the message we need to send: not in our house. If we play good teams at our place and beat them, we will climb in the standings. We can tie Maccabi with a victory on...

Cabezas: NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 16:54:58 GMT

Wassup, wassup, wassup, my man? As you can see, I am working on my English. But more importantly, our team is working on our game. We are on our way to Rome to play Lottomatica and Dejan Bodiroga, and the truth is we have to win this game. Mathematically, we know that we probably have to win six of the nine games left. So it's a difficult situation and we have to move forward now. After losing in Athens to Panathinaikos and then losing in the Spanish League on Sunday morning, at home to Pamesa Valencia, we have to start playing better. We went back to work on Sunday night, in fact, just a few hours after we lost to Pamesa. It wasn't a full practice so much as a team meeting in which we got a chance to talk in general about what we need to do. Other than that, I can say the team is in good spirits and really ready to win. That's the good thing so far. Now we just have to take games the way we know how.

This is our fourth road trip in six Euroleague games so far, and that might have a little to do with our record. Everyone knows that in the Euroleague, teams want to protect their home court at all cost and try to steal some wins away from home. I know of only a couple teams in the other groups who have the same amount of road games as us so far: Climamio is 0-5 and Fenerbahce is 1-4. They are teams that are used to the competition, too. I am not making excuses for anybody. We know we lost games early that we could have won with some better concentration. Now we have to win on the road one way or another, so I hope that the opportunity to get the victory is there at the end of the game in Rome. This time we have to take it.

I have never played in Rome before, but after visiting OAKA last week to play Panathinaikos, it occurred to me that our group goes through some of the hottest arenas in Europe - including our own in Malaga. First we went to Tel Aviv to play Maccabi at Nokia Arena - which I still call Yad Eliyahu - and then to Cibona, where the gym is named in honor of Drazen Petrovic. Then OAKA last week and later we'll play at Hala Tivoli in Ljubljana against Union Olimpija and at Pionir in Belgrade against Partizan. We're talking about almost mythical arenas in Europe. Like I have said before, personally I like going into those places. First, as a competitor, you are going against great teams. But the places themselves and the fans make the atmosphere super-charged, and I prefer to play in places like that. Some people might think it's intimidating for the visiting team, but I think it brings out your best. But getting back to OAKA, where I also played in the Olympics, the fans who are going there for the Final Four will love it. The building itself is great and everyone knows about how feverish the fans in Athens are. They are fanatics for sports, and even moreso this year, I think, with the Final Four coming. That will be a great show no matter who plays in it, but I would certainly like to go back.

BIRTHDAY WISH!

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 18:19:05 GMT

Since today is my 26th birthday, I am wishing for a turnaround for Unicaja in the Euroleague. It has been tough watching my team lose the last couple weeks after I took a hit in the triceps and had to sit out the second half of our Eurolegue game against Joventut. Then, because of the same injury, I didn't travel to Zagreb for the next game. The good news is that I am back playing, even though it seemed I was going to be out longer. I feel lucky because with a muscle tear, I was supposed to not play for three weeks. But after six or seven days, it seemed that the muscle was regenerating well, so we tested it last Saturday. I went through the whole practice and it only hurt a bit when I took strong bumps, so I decided to travel to our Spanish League game in Alicante and see what minutes I could play. I would only go on the court in a game knowing I could help the team, not to see if I was ready. You can't risk hurting the team in that way. So I got some minutes and scored six points and we won away from home. I think I contributed something. Now, we have to try to do the same in the Euroleague.

Of course, these have been three difficult losses for us in the Euroleague so far: two in overtime and the third one on a tip-in at the buzzer. In Tel Aviv the first week, we knew that would be a tough game to win, but we had a chance once we got it to overtime. But the other two losses really surprised us. In the Joventut game at home, we thought we were going to overtime with a tenth of a second left. Then Lubos Barton made his pass to Rudy, who killed us. Then in Zagreb, we played some bad minutes that almost took us out of the game against Cibona. We were able to react with a 5-20 partial in the last quarter, which was important, but it ended up being another game in overtime that we lost. I was watching from home, and you see things a little differently there, but when you give away a long stretch of a game like we did to Cibona, it's hard to win on the road, even if we did have options at the end.

All of this means that our game against Union Olimpija on Thursday at home is crucial for us. We have to put everything we have into that game because it's one we have to win now. One of our objectives that we had at the beginning of the season was to take another step forward, and in the Euroleague, that means getting past the Top 16 and almost to the Final Four. But from there, we have seen how hard it is. We have had bad luck but it's up to us to change it. I am glad I could come back sooner than expected and I hope that Marcus Brown can be with us on Thursday, too. Marcus is a player who is not only important for his skills - which are unquestionable - but also for his personality. He is a player who has been everywhere, knows all the other opponents and coaches, and is one of the most recognized faces in the Euroleague. His presence alone could be very positive for us.

By way of introduction, you should know that I come from a basketball family. My parents came to Spain from Uruguay and my father played here in a lot of cities - Gran Canaria, Granada, Malaga and others in the first division. He had a special talent for outside shooting and could read the game well, too. He was not as fortunate as me, perhaps, to have had the opportunities that I have gotten already in my career. But thanks to him, I am where I am. He helped me get better all the time when I was a kid, whatever I needed. My family has been at my side from when I first started playing as a kid in Marbella, through the Unicaja youth system, always taking me to games or going to them to see me play. They were in Lisbon at the junior worlds and see most of my games in Malaga. Of course, the most special has been having them with us in Japan. Besides us winning the gold, it was a special trip as well, and to share all of that with them made it even better.

Speaking of travel, we had quite a week to start the Euroleague season. We went on the longest trip in our Euroleague group, and then directly from that to the longest trip of the season in the Spanish ACB League. We slept in five different cities in six nights, I think. We woke up Tuesday in Malaga and flew to Madrid and Milan. We slept in Milan on Tuesday, woke up Wednesday and flew to Tel Aviv. Everything was great there, we practiced and played a tough game, but lost. Then, right after the game, we got back on a plane and went back to Milan and Madrid, where we arrived at noon the next day. We slept overnight in Madrid, got a practice in, then flew to Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands for our game on Sunday in the ACB. It takes a long time just to tell, and honestly I don't know if I got it all right! You have to do your best to pass the time on these trips when you're not playing. Guys either have books, play tennis and football on PSP handhelds, listen to music on their iPods, get on the Internet with laptop computers - anything to pass the time. Honestly, we are lucky these days to have all this technology as a diversion, because there are a lot of hours to kill. I wonder how players in the old days did it. I'll have to ask my father.