Scariolo: “It has been the triumph of basketball as a team sport”

“It is a huge satisfaction for the level of the championship. Basketball has been generous with those who have respected their team sport values. Passing the ball, respecting roles, training hard, helping each other, not having egos. It has been the triumph of basketball as a team sport and when that happens, a coach cannot be happier from the point of view of the game”, he valued after the match played in Berlin

The Brescia coach admitted that not even in the remotest of his dreams did he expect his team to win gold “in a championship in which teams that had NBA stars, NBA MVPs and All Stars have been left behind.”

“Let your team show its face and compete. I didn’t doubt that. But we entered the eighth in the ‘power ranking’ of the championship and came out as champions”, he reflected.

Regarding the success of the team, he pointed out that there is a lot of work behind the victory: “No part of the way should be underestimated. If you add many small parts, it leads to success. But it is true that this has been a success. People will say that we are a respectable team, where people play together and have an idea and an identity.”

Likewise, Scariolo acknowledged that it is easier for him now to work in a team without a starSomething that did not happen years ago.

“When you had players with much more talent, personality, used to being the stars of their teams, to whom you had to say: today you play five minutes, today you play only to defend, or to put a lock. For me that was more difficult. Here the management has been simple”, he added.

After the success in Berlin, Scariolo already thinks “of the next” tournament. Before that, he will celebrate it with his players, who entered the press room at the Mercedes-Benz Arena to interrupt the appearance and douse the coach with water Willy Hernangomez.