By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Fenerbahçe Beko coach Saras Jasikevičius spoke at the postgame press conference following his team’s loss to Dubai.
The defeat, in the fourth round of the EuroLeague, marked Fenerbahçe’s third loss of the season and their second consecutive at home.
“I’d like to congratulate Dubai and coach Golemac on their win. I also want to apologize once again to our fans — this is not the image of Fenerbahçe we want to show. A performance like this at home is unacceptable. I keep repeating myself, but we’re struggling to find the right solutions on offense, and our motivation isn’t where it should be. The only positive is that we have another game in 48 hours where we can react,” Jasikevičius said.
Regarding poor starts to the quarters, he added:
“I don’t know if you remember, but this was also a problem under the previous coach. When that happens, you look at the stats to understand what’s going on. Nearly two years have passed, and we still haven’t found a clear solution. This has been an issue for a long time, and the reality is that last season we were one of the worst teams in the league in first quarters. We are aware of the problem, we talk about it with the players constantly, but a solution hasn’t been found yet.”
Jasikevičius didn’t want to comment on the officiating.
“After a game like this, talking about the referees only embarrasses ourselves. Honestly, Wade is an emotional player — we know that — but he has made huge progress in controlling his emotions. Today wasn’t one of his best games, of course, but I’m not worried about his emotional control.”
In the end, he had a request for the fans:
“I also want to make a request to our fans: please stop chanting ‘EuroLeague Mafia’ during games. It’s not appropriate, especially considering we are the reigning EuroLeague champions. When we played well and won the championship last year, no one was calling ‘mafia.’ So I won’t comment on the referees today because our opponent simply outplayed us.“