By Semih Tuna / stuna@eurohoops.net
Anadolu Efes emerged triumphant in the Turkish derby after beating Fenerbahce 89-84 in Round 12 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and Shane Larkin talked to Eurohoops about the team getting healthy, and his advantage against his defenders.
Larkin indeed caused trouble to Fenerbahce‘s defense, as Nando De Colo and Pierria Henry both struggled in the first and second half respectively, as the Efes superstar led all scorers with a season-high performance of 25 points and 7 assists.
“I think I’m one of the best players on the offensive end in Europe and at the end of the day, I feel like whoever is guarding me I have a good advantage against them. I just had a rhythm today so it didn’t really matter who it was guarding me, I just felt like I wanted to go out there and be together with my teammates, playing unselfishly, shoot the ball when I can, pass when I need to pass and just play the right way,” Larkin tells Eurohoops.
Efes has bounced back from the worst start of a reigning champion in the EuroLeague with four consecutive wins, and Larkin explains what changed in the team from the beginning of the season until now.
“We’re healthy. If you look at the first four-five games of the season, we didn’t have all of our players together, we didn’t have all of our roster. We got a bunch of injuries, Kruno, Vasa, Tibor, James, Chris, Filip… Everybody had little things here and there, but we’ve known each other now for so long, we know that once we catch our rhythm, we’re one of the best teams in the league. I think we won six out of our last seven. Now we just got a continue to get better every single day, stay healthy continue to work on our rhythm all together and get back to that championship level rhythm we had last year,” he explains. “I feel good now, my body feels good, and I hope they can just continue now playing better each and every week”.