Unicaja won this Tuesday in Greece against AEK (65-75) in a match in which dirty work prevailed over glamour. “Important victory, very complicated in a spectacular environment. Very happy because without having made a brilliant gamethat now we are not at that point, Yes, we played a very solid match“, valued Ibon Navarro after the meeting. Although he recognized that some errors allowed the Greeks to stay alive in the clash.
Despite the loss of two local starters such as Williams and Strelnieks, it was not easy to decide the Basketball Champions League duel. “We have continued to work hard on the match, maturing it, finding situations. I think we have limited the game of Lemar a lot. Although Mitchell has hurt us near the rim, we have managed to limit some actions that we had prepared. He is a player from more than one dimension. The fact that they have not taken the lead at any time has also been a weight on a mental level for them,” he said.
Once the Round of 16 has been passed and as the first group, All the spotlights are on Friday’s draw. Does Ibon Navarro have any favourites? “No preference. We are talking about the quarterfinals, the step prior to the Final Four, and there is no easy team.”
Of course, he is very clear about those who must be avoided. “All teams are complicated, but obviously Avoiding a Spanish team would be good due to the fact that we know each other a lot and when you know a rival a lot it is easier to limit certain things. There we could have more problems. Whatever it is will be difficult and we will have to prepare it.” UCAM Murcia is the first national confirmed to be in pot 2 and we will have to wait until Wednesday night to see if Baxi Manresa joins.
Friday will be the draw and already at the beginning of April the start of the quarterfinals. There is still time until then, but Ibon Navarro does not want to lose focus on what is now the main objective, thinking about May and June. “Now we have to focus a lot on the ACB League. We have added two consecutive defeats against UCAM Murcia and Barça. We have to resume the pulse of the League to position ourselves well for the play off“.
