By Javier Molero/ info@eurohoops.net
Trent Forrest dominated Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey final (89-100) that Baskonia ultimately won. The American point guard came close to achieving a historic milestone in the tournament.
With his enormous performance, he fell just short of recording the first triple-double in Copa del Rey history, finishing with 22 points, 9 rebounds, and 11 assists for the former NBA player, which earned him the tournament MVP award.
After the victory, Forrest spoke at a press conference, expressing the emotion of lifting the trophy, thanking the fans, and emphasizing that they play as a team every day.
“Very emotional to be here, happy to have achieved it. It’s been a tremendous success for the team and the fans. I want to give a huge congratulations to our supporters,” Forrest began.
“They traveled and came here and helped us a lot because we played three games in three days and it’s very difficult to do. They were three very tough matches, so we thank them,” he continued, expressing gratitude to the fans.
“We know what we’ve achieved, but this is something we talked about from day one. We talked about it since August, it’s what the organization wanted, what the coach wanted, and what the players wanted,” the Copa MVP continued.
“We all bought into what we had to do and we worked very hard. We had very happy days and kept moving forward. We work to be better. This is the result of everything we’ve worked for,” Forrest added.
“Madrid is a very big team and has a lot of size on every possession. We weren’t scared or anything like that; we weren’t going to change the way we play. We knew that Tavares likes to be close to the basket, so if we could get him out… and we weren’t scared of him either because he’s very big,” he analyzed about the final.
“It’s definitely one of the best games of my career. Not just because of my performance, but because of the whole team. The way Eugene (Omoruyi) played and the way Diakite played motivated me. What Markus did also motivated me. It wasn’t just my performance. We had 4-5 players who could have been MVPs,” he said about his teammates.
“We’re a very close team; we feed off each other. We give each other that extra energy when we need it,” he praised Baskonia.
“Even before arriving at Baskonia, Paolo called me and asked about expectations. I just try to improve every day,” he told the media.
“When Tim (Luwawu-Cabarrot) ended up being ejected, Markus appeared and picked up where he left off. Both are tremendous scorers. We trust them when we have the ball. When Markus appeared, we knew he would do what he had to do,” he commented to the media.