On the afternoon before the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Championship Game is played, the head coaches and a player from each team met at Uber Arena in Berlin for the official press conference. Representing Real Madrid were Coach Chus Mateo and forward Dzanan Musa. From Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, it was Coach Ergin Ataman and All-EuroLeague center Mathias Lessort. Here’s what you need to know from the press conference.
Back-to-back talk
Surprisingly, there wasn’t a whole lot said about Real Madrid’s chance to defend its crown. The first to bring it us was Musa in his opening statement.
“We are excited to be in a position to go back to back, We know it won’t be easy, but we will do our best give everything that we have to do that. I am excited for tomorrow’s game,” Musa said.
Ataman later brought it up, too, without being asked about it: “He wants to be back-to-back coach,” Ataman said referring to Mateo. “I don’t want to give him. The last record is that I am the back-to-back coach in the EuroLeague, so that is another motivation for me.”
Coach Mateo, master of cliches
Coach Mateo once again proved to be a master of cliches, whom you must listen carefully to get a feel for his opinions. Among his quotes, Mateo said: “the most important thing is to take care of details”, “we are going to try our best and show our character”, “the most important thing is to never retreat”, "in a final can happen too many things”, “every game is totally different”. And then he said this gem, which takes puts several cliches together to make a masterful point.
“I think the details are sometimes not always small details. Sometimes rebounding is not such a small detail. Sometimes defense is not a small detail. Sometimes scoring from the outside is not a small detail. Sometimes to look for a good shot is not a small detail. We have to look for these important details to make a big difference. But sometimes you don’t know how it’s going to go.”