Lolo Encinas, in the Illunbe press room. /
LEB Oro
Acunsa GBC faces tomorrow at 19.00 against Leyma Coruña at home, “a team that is clear that it has to be in one of the two promotion spots to ACB”
Acunsa Gipuzkoa Basket travels to Galician lands this Friday to face Leyma Coruña (LaLigaSports TV) on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. on the fifth day of the LEB Oro. The week of the San Sebastian team has been marked by the heavy defeat of the weekend in Illunbe against Granada (50-76) and Aegir Steinarsson’s knee injury, who will be out of the court for between three and four weeks.
The Donostia coach appeared this Friday in the Illunbe press room before the last training session in San Sebastián and pointed out that the main task these days has been to “move parts in the systems and to make up for Aegir’s loss.”
Zubizarreta will be the starting point guard and in the positions of organizer and guard will be Charles Barton and Mikel Motos. Urko González (21 years old), the Easo guard who plays in the EBA league, has trained continuously with the team and “has given us a very important cable.” He will travel for the first time with Gipuzkoa Basket to an away game to try to expand the rotation in those positions.
“There are people who will have to take a step forward and who will play more minutes,” Encinas said. “It is also a good opportunity for the players because they will have more minutes and they will combine two positions, like Barton and Motos. Zubizarreta can play with that greater confidence that he will have to take a step forward and that he will enjoy the field, is what I have transmitted to him. Do not eat your head, enjoy yourself and that you will have all the minutes you can.
After the setback last day, Gipuzkoa Basket has the objective of returning to compete against another team that aims to be at the top of the table. “Coruña, by staff, is very clear that he has to be in one of the two promotion positions. What I would like is for us to compete as we have done so far away from home ».
The rival, trained by Sergio García from San Sebastian and where Mikel Sanz, also from San Sebastian, plays, has the same balance as Acunsa: two victories, against Granada and Palma; and two defeats, against Cáceres and Valladolid. “They have a very long squad and the best thing is that they have many generating players, so they have several focuses. They have a lot of quality on the outside. So far they have not appeared, but they have a lot of ‘goal’ ».
He stressed that “they always have two players capable of playing direct blocking and that makes you change your defensive idea.” However, his biggest threat is in the inside game: Nick Ward. At 24 years old and 2.06 meters tall, it is an animal in the area. He averages 18.5 points and 10.5 rebounds in these first four games, with percentages of 64.4% on field goals. «It is the feeling of this beginning and it is being decisive. He is the innermost player in the league, the one they play with the most in the low post and we will have to prepare something different on the inside. Delas, Proleta and Roker will have a lot of work to do.
In the first game without the Icelander, it will be necessary to see how the team changes its style of play, but Lolo Encinas is clear that “we want to have that identity of playing basketball well again. If we give a lot of assists it means that we are playing well, passing the ball and making baskets. The last day we lost a lot of balls and it is difficult to play that way, so let’s see if we can control that. We have lost the player who gives the team the greatest speed and maybe we don’t have to play so fast ”, he concluded.
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