By Alex Molina / info@eurohoops.net
Barça lost against Hapoel Tel Aviv, and Joan Peñarroya stated the obvious in the press conference after the game.
As the coach of the Catalans admitted, it was all about the lack of defense.
“I think it’s very difficult to win a home, and it’s impossible to win away if we receive 103 points”, he said. “Our defense was soft; we need to improve our physical level. They played with a very high percentage in the paint, and for us, it was a bad game in defensive situations. Next game we will play in Athens, if Panathinaikos scores 103 points, it’s impossible to win. Hapoel controlled the game for 40 minutes. We played a few minutes with good defense, but every time we played good defense, we lost the rebound. It’s clear we need to improve, it’s clear we need to improve our physical level, and today Hapoel played better than us”.
The game wasn’t played in Israel, but it had several fans on the stands with Peñarroya adding: “Good atmosphere without problems. The Bulgarian people enjoy Euroleague games and the atmosphere is good”.
Even though it was just the first game, Barça’s goals remain the same: “Our first goal is to compete better than today. In Barcelona, we want to compete to the end, to compete in all the games, playoffs, and Final Four. But it’s not only Barcelona, a lot of teams have very good squads, and today it’s only the first round. We will fight to compete against everybody”.