Turk Snuffs Out The Dragon

i am puzzled as to what happened. All the quotes from Slovenian team that are coming out are basically saying that they were not aggressive enough and that they didn’t stop charge from Turkey and blablabla…well tell me something i didn’t see for myself. Don’t get me wrong. Turkey with its crowd is very good. If there was a way that a team could fail a doping test based on mental doping, Turkey would fail it. The crowd is literally putting this team into trans and in my mind, objectivelly, this team is not as good as the scores suggests. Again, i’m not being a sore loser, as you say, i think they are playing some great basketball, but they are not a 30 points better team.

That leads me to Slovenia. They played so well up to this point. They raised my expectations to be honest. Everybody talked before the game with Turkey what main concerns are, yet with all the talk, there was no putting theory in to practice. i know it’s easier said than done, but still…we all knew this was a ‘do or die’ game. This is not best of 5 series. This is win and you advance, or lose and you play with Spain for those, weird, somewhere in the back placements. That is why i am puzzled. I don’t mind losing against a better team, i do mind losing this way. Turkey missed only 3 of 11 three pointers in the first half. Crazy yes, but there was absolutely no pressure defense on those shots. No pressure on passing lanes. No pressure on the point guard. No full court press, no half court press. Slovenia comited only 6 (!!!) personal fouls in the first half. That is just bad defense. I’m not saying, foul for the sake of the foul, but when you play agressive defense with intense pressure, fouls are going to be made. Instead Slovenia looked like they don’t believe they can win. And now i’m basically hearing that after the 1st quarter, it was basically over. Excuse me?! You have 3 more quarters and you’re saying it’s impossible to come back. Sure with that attitude and with that kind of pathetic effort it is impossible.

And hearing some of the statements it almost seems, like this game was out of their control, like i was watching Lost (whatever happened, happened). Well you knew from the start, what kind of effort this will take, and you failed. It’s not like the game started with Turkey leading 20 points. No! You failed at the start! The game starts at zero. Take responsibilty. And you also failed to fight back. You looked like you don’t belong there. And it seems like you quit after the first quarter!

I’ll stop, since the more i think about the game, the more annoyed i get. Look, i still support the team and i’m a fan. I mean, if we finish 5th in the Worlds, that’s awesome! It’s just that, the aproach to the most important game in the tourney bothers me. If you don’t believe you can win, why play at all.

Sure, the entire team took a day off so to speak and that included Goran. He played 21 minutes, had 5 points with only 1 made shot out of 7. I don’t know what to say. He obviously is a young player who has issues when performing against better teams who foucs on him agressivelly. His outside shot wasn’t falling, he was forcing the drives inside which ended with misses, or weird “bail out” passes outside. Even coach said after the game, that “Gogi” wasn’t himself. That he was trying to play one on five. Like the rest of the team, i didn’t see fire in him. Not in offense and not in defense. I sincerely wish for him the best! But he needs to perform well consistently against any team. Against any defense. And if he has a bad game, he still needs to put a mark on the game. At least with effort! Look at Nash. He has bad games, but at least he never goes down without a fight. And yes, they are different players (personalities) but if there is one thing that is completly up to an individual is his effort. It’s a mental decision! There is never an excuse to leave it all on the floor. And that goes for Goran, as well as for Slovenia.

We’ll see how they respond on Friday when they play Spain.