Back home to finish it off
Hello again to all the Turkish Airlines Euroleague fans. I’d like to start off this time by talking about the last few weeks. They were very unusual weeks because we spent practically all our time away from Siena. We played two Euroleague games in Spain and also two Italian League games on the road. It was somewhat similar to the preseason, when you spend so much time on the road, traveling for training camps or for friendly games and tournaments. The main difference was that all these recent games were very important for our season, and I have to say that this time together away from home has been tough, but it also helped us to improve our mentality and our way of thinking as a team, to all stay on the same page. It has been a Spain-Italy challenge, or better a Spain-Siena challenge, played so far just for a half, against two of the strongest team of that country, but it is not yet finished, and now they will come to our home court trying to get their revenge.
We come off this first part of the Top 16 mentally stronger and with more confidence, but we know we cannot change our attitude. I say that because of our experience from last season, when we started 0-2, but we never gave up and we were able to come back with great inner strength to qualify by going and taking a win on the difficult court of Belgrade. This means we have the ability to win both games against Madrid and Unicaja, but they could do the same thing. I think that all four teams in our group have the quality to continue to progress in the competition.
We left Siena last week when the snow was falling from the sky and we covered ourselves with our heavy coats, scarves and wool caps, but arriving in Malaga we found a nice surprise. It was very hot, with a temperature of around 20 degrees, and we immediately took our swimsuits from our baggage...Im joking but we had to change our dress quickly to avoid problems. Another nice thing happened. My teammates and I published photos of sunny Malaga on our Facebook pages and our friends and fans from Siena, still stuck in the snow and icy low temperatures, sent us envious comments. I have to say that even in Malaga, the weather and temperature changed on the evening of the game, and the seaside without the sun during the winter is not so nice.
If I could have a crystal ball, I would like to see us qualify to the next round, maybe from first place, but I know this is just a dream and we have to think and remain focused on our goal, because distractions are not allowed in the Euroleague. Now we have to think about getting a win in Wednesday’s battle against Unicaja, and then well think week-by-week about the remaining games. A few days ago Henry Domercant was named the bwin January MVP. Hes playing an amazing Top 16 like his team, Unics Kazan, a team that came to Siena and won on our home court by playing an outstanding game. I thought that my teammate Bo McCalebb could win this award, because he also is living a magic moment and playing a great Top 16, but Im very happy for Henry, and I hope that Bo – with the help of all the team – can take a similar award or maybe a bigger one in the next weeks.
Now I will go to take a little rest, because it was very hard to travel around for a week. Now is time to think about the game of Wednesday and for this reason I want to ask to our fans to come to the arena and to yell and chant for us to push the team to a pivotal win. Ciao to all the Turkish Airlines Euroleague fans and I hope to be back here very soon…
POSTED BY
PIETRO ARADORI - SIENA, ITALY
DATE:
Tuesday, February 07, 2012