By Dionysis Aravantinos / info@eurohoops.net
Adreian Payne is slowly starting to adapt to the different system, that of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and as he showed on Thursday (30/03) against Valencia Basket, he can affect the game positively with his presence down low.
After Panathinaikos Superfoods Athens defeated Valencia in the final home game of the season in Athens, Adreian Payne talked to Eurohoops.
Thanks to Luka Doncic’s game-winner, Real Madrid defeated Crvena Zvezda in Belgrade and has the chance in its own hands to finish at the top-4. A possible opponent would be Panathinaikos. As Adreian Payne states, the Greek side is a great team, that only has to focus on what they can improve: “They are a good team. We are a great team. We just try to keep getting better and focus on what we can control. That’s on us getting better every day, practicing and then executing in the games. We are trying to continue doing that. When it comes down to who we play, we’ll just lace up and get ready to go.”
After losing the first two EuroLeague games with Mike James and Adreian Payne in the squad, Panathinaikos has won four straight, and the 27-year old keeps on improving and adjusting to Europe’s different style of play. In the game against Valencia, he scored 12 points, grabbed eight rebounds, while also being a defensive presence down low with two blocks and one steal. As he says, the best is yet to come: “I think it’s the best game I’ve played here so far, but I can definitely play better. As you can see I missed a lot of free-throws (4/8 FT), and I feel like if we shot the ball better as a team, I would have been better.”
With Mike James’ return to Panathinaikos, coach Xavi Pascual has created a dominant backcourt of Nick Calathes as a point-guard and Mike James playing next to him. Payne believes that not only the two players but the whole team will be keys moving forward. “I think they are (keys to success). Not just them, however, our whole team is, we got great pieces, great players. We are just trying to continue to get better. We got depth and like you said we got Mike, Leka, many players that continue to get better.”
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