BARAĆ: “CIBONA PLAYED IN THEIR RHYTHM, WE DIDN’T RESPOND WELL – WE HAVE TO CHANGE OURSELVES”

After overtime, Mega MIS lost to Cibona in the fourth round of the ABA league 93:100 (23:34, 26:22, 18:18, 24:17, 2:9). Marko Barać’s team was behind for most of the match, but they played their best when it was needed the most. They took the lead in the dying minutes and were on the verge of victory. However, the guests equalized at the last moment and the game went to overtime. In the additional five minutes, they then took the lead and eventually triumphed. Mega now has 0-4, while Cibona recorded its second victory (2-2).

Head coach of Mega Marko Barać gave his impressions at the press conference:

– I congratulate the guests on the well-deserved victory, they played in their rhythm, “five on five” and executed well on offense. We didn’t respond well. The agreement was to speed up the game with aggressive defense all over the pitch, but we haven’t reached that level yet to understand how to do it. We tried the opposite, by making hasty decisions in the attack that lead to a lack of confidence. It is up to us to continue working and training. We will analyze the match. We have to change ourselves, to understand what Cibona did today and that is something that all teams will do – seek advantage on the individual level. We need to look at each other, understand what is happening and work to fix it,

said Barać.

He also analyzed the course of the match in detail:

– When you concede 56 points in the first half, there is nothing to talk about in terms of aggressiveness in defense. The problem was also the constant targeting of too many of our players by Cibona. They had a significant advantage in too many positions offensively, character-wise, and individually… In every way. In the second half, we managed to establish aggressiveness on the ball all over the field, speed up the way we had been preparing all week and it gave results. We tried to hide that large number of players who were targeted for one-on-one play, and made certain adjustments and that led to us having the advantage with a few minutes to go. The rest should have been a matter of routine. All we had to do was not allow open shots and a two-plus-one game. Everything I asked for, the opposite happened. One three-pointer, albeit from a long distance, a couple of two-plus-one situations and we turned to a problem where we had a few seconds left and the open game. At that moment, they had a misunderstanding in the defense, and that created space for our best player to penetrate, however, a wrong decision followed. The two points scored in overtime are the result of hiding in defensive matchups. We were constantly looking for a line-up that can respond defensively individually and with character. This led to us losing freshness and rhythm offensively,

concluded Mega MIS coach Marko Barać.

In the next round, Mega will visit Partizan, and the match is scheduled for Sunday (October 30) at 9 p.m.

Photo: Mega MIS/Ivica Veselinov