By Nikola Miloradovic / [email protected]
It wasn’t pretty, but Fenerbahce Beko managed to secure a win on the road against LDLC ASVEL. The Turkish side won a tough, physical battle in Villeurbanne, improving to 6-2 in the EuroLeague standings.
Sarunas Jasikevicius anticipated difficulties on the road in France and admits he is not fully satisfied with how Fenerbahce is playing at the moment, though he sees room for improvement.
“This is what we expect in the EuroLeague on the road. At this point in the season, we keep saying we cannot play our best basketball yet. I don’t know who’s really playing good basketball—probably only Bayern right now—but we just need to pick up wins, learn, and incorporate players, and that’s what we’re doing. It’s a new team. We have a great group of guys, and the locker room is great. But we need to be patient. Today was not a very good game for us, but the most important thing is to take these points, improve, and learn,” Jasikevicius said.
Although not fully satisfied with the team’s current play, he emphasizes that the fighting spirit is evident.
“We couldn’t get going; 6 for 32 is a very bad number. In the last two games, we’re really not hitting shots, but 19 offensive rebounds show the fighting spirit from the guys—they wanted to win the game in an ugly way, and that’s what we can do right now. We’ve beaten some very good teams this year by playing ugly and pulling through. The guys are showing character.”
Fenerbahce’s starting point guard, Wade Baldwin, went down early in the first quarter, and after spending less than three minutes on the court, he had to leave and did not return. On the other side, Neal Sako and Melvin Ajinça couldn’t finish the game for ASVEL.
“I didn’t even pick up that Sako was injured; then we saw Ajinça go down. Obviously, we’re trying to focus more on our part. Wade is important right now. It’s not possible to have more information about him at this moment,” Jasikevicius concluded.
