Moment of truth!

February 08, 2012

Friday, April 16, 2010

Moment of truth!

Thomas Kelati - Power Electronics Valencia

Hi everyone. Now, we're really close to the moment of truth! By that moment, I mean Saturday's semifinals, too, because without winning then, there is no Sunday to dream about the trophy. I can guarantee you that we are focused on that moment and ready to play. The whole season has been building up to this, every improvement along the way adds up to having a team that is confident and prepared to confront this challenge. As I said in my first blog, I am confident because of the chemistry we have on our team. It's a mix of young guys and veterans, shooters, defenders, passers, floor-runners.... We do have a very versatile team. For instance, this is my first year playing with Victor Claver, and even as a teammate, I tell you, he's fun to watch and very talented. He can play either forward spot well and do everything, really. It's no wonder he was named the Rising Star Trophy winner for the Eurocup, but he doesn't play like a young guy. Everyone knows we're a deep team, but one interesting thing about us that people may not recognize is that the guys coming off the bench have a lot of experience. Marko Marinovic, Florent Pietrus, Serhiy Lishchuk and I are all guys who have played and won a lot. I think that means that our lineup gives a lot of options to our coach. Depending on the game, he can utilize the player he needs at any given moment, which is part of our success: we have players for every situation.

I know most of the teams in Europe, but I have to confess to not having seen much of Panellinios until now. We have done our scouting, though, and you can see that their team has a lot age and experience going for it, not to mention a really good coach. Their style is to protect the paint and keep other teams from doing damage there. They know for sure that we can get out and run, which might help us overcome their halfcourt defense. We have youth and versatile players, so we'll do our best to run and score easy. But that's all I can give away. We've got to save some strategy for the game! I will say, however, that in this situation, a semifinal, I would rather play a team that is unknown to us but that we have had a week to learn about. That's because I give our coaches a lot of credit for the scouting they do for us, which is always good. The other reason I prefer a new team we haven't played before is that we won't relax thinking we already played them and know everything. In that situation, a team you played before might do something different and you might struggle to adjust, especially with a young team like ours. I'm happy we're going against a team we don't know. I tend to think we'll play a lot better in that situation. It will help make sure that we'll go 100-percent and bring our best game!

POSTED BY

THOMAS KELATI - VITORIA-GAZTEIZ, SPAIN

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