The calm before the excitement

May 24, 2012

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Hi, Eurocup fans! My teammates and I on Alba Berlin can't wait to ring out the Eurocup season in Spain this weekend - and hopefully bring the trophy back here to Germany's capital with us! It's been a real long season for Alba. We were trying to make it into the Euroleague, so everyone came early to get ready for those qualifying games back in September. It didn't work out for us, but we wanted to forget that disappointment by turning around and seizing the opportunity to play in the Eurocup. I think we made the best of that opportunity so far, by making this weekend's Eurocup Finals. And when it's over, we hope to be going to the Euroleague anyway, as the champs of the Eurocup!

I didn't know at one point this season if I was going to make it this far myself. What happened to me shows that luck is also part of teams getting to the final phases in any competition. I am talking about injury luck: mine was bad, but it turned out not stopping me for the whole season, so it turned good. I was boxing out for a rebound in a game in January and got banged in the leg like rebounders always do. It seemed so normal at the time that I stayed in for a couple more possessions. I had gotten hit like that so many times before, I just thought I had a slight cramp or something. I went home after the game and noticed that the leg I got hit on started swelling. Then in the middle of the night it started hurting more and more. I couldn't sleep and called the doctor in the morning. As it turns out, the bang I took had broken some sort of blood vessel in my leg and it just kept bleeding and swelling. They had to operate on me and I missed several games in the Last 16 round of the Eurocup. It was such a strange way to get injured. I was never worried, because even when it happened, I didn't think much of it. There was no instantaneous feeling that you were injured, that something was wrong. I knew I was coming back, but I didn't know how long it would take. Luckily, my teammates saw us through and I was able to return for the final, crucial game of the Last 16.

If you don't know the story, that final Last 16 game was against DKV Joventut of Spain, on their court in Badalona. The funny part is we played in the exact same situation the year before in the Euroleague, again them in Badalona for one or the other team to reach the Top 16. In this case, it was them or us to make the Quarterfinals. Nobody wants to face such a game on the road, let alone against a good team in Spain, but it was just one of those situation where you had to win. We wouldn't have chosen them again, I tell you that. It was one of those things where I thought: 'OK, we won here once in a do-or-die game, but to do it twice will be very, very hard.' No one was excited to go there, but we did have the confidence of knowing we had succeeded in the exact same situation before. Badalona is never an easy place to play, but we were able to put our best foot forward that night, again. Without it, we wouldn't be where we are this week, heading to Vitoria in search of the Eurocup title!

What do we have going for us this weekend? A lot, but so do the other teams, of course. What I am confident about is our ability to focus. Success is a matter of having the right guys playing together long enough, and that process giving the confidence and focus necessary in these types of finals situations, which are not easy. You've got to remain calm and not get overwhelmed or too excited if the game is close. What you have to do, instead, is put your skills on the floor. We have a lot of guys with skills and many of us have played together two full seasons now, with a couple more added this year. It's just a matter of knowing we can do this and focusing on what it takes, but it helps to have confidence from being together and to know what all your other guys do. As a team, we've been through a lot of things together. We are counting on all of it this weekend, too!

POSTED BY

ADAM CHUBB - BERLIN, GERMANY

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