Petar Mijović answered questions from the media at the conference after the defeat against Crvena Zvezda.
Crvena zvezda Meridianbet convincingly defeated Buducnost at the start of the semi-final series of the ABA league (93:55). From the first second, the Serbian team dictated the events on the floor and came within a step of qualifying for the final. Everything could be resolved on May 23, as the second leg is then played in Podgorica.
The head of the guests’ profession, Petar Mijović, was disappointed with the release of his chosen ones. “After such a result and such a played first half, all that happened until the end was a sequence of events that was expected in the collision of two qualities. Regarding the quality relationship between us and the Zvezda team. If you are not at your maximum focus and concentration for the entire 40 minutes, you have nothing to ask for against this kind of team. It’s not that we weren’t at the required level for 40 minutes, primarily I mean focus and concentration in the execution of certain tasks. Apart from the opening few minutes, we were not in the game. We managed to open up the court for them, so that Kampaco stretched our transition defense to our basket in the opening few minutes, enabled open shots, Bentil and Petrushev scored a high percentage of shots for three. The difference in the result shows that we were extremely ‘soft’, all that was enough for what we showed, and we showed very, very little,” Mijović began.
He believes that his team can play much better in “Morača”. “We have to fix the basic things, you have to be maximally concentrated, energetic to succeed in completing the tasks, we have to raise it to the maximum, not to a certain measure. That’s how it has to be for all 40 minutes in order for the game to be played. The shooting percentages were devastating, they came as a drop in self-confidence that we created in the previous period, again insufficient adaptation to what Zvezda showed. He has to do a lot better, from one-on-one defense, blocking the basket, transition. And what we managed to control, we fell for some other things, there were a lot of open shots. This is a team that is one of the five best in Europe in terms of players and coaches.”
Finally, he was asked if there is too much of a difference between the “eternal” who play in the Euroleague and the other teams in the ABA League. “Each match is a story for itself, we will not go to the second match with the intention of losing as little as possible, but to go out and play in a rhythm that could allow us to celebrate. There are many things we have to open up. Partizan and Zvezda showed a difference during the league part, some defeats there were more a combination of some circumstances. This is the playoffs, their heads are on a different level, Zvezda is ‘locked’ with their ambitions, the approach showed what they wanted from this match. We can expect a bigger difference than it was during the league part of the season“, concluded Mijović.
THE STAR IS AMONG THE FIVE BEST TEAMS IN EUROPE! Mijović is aware of the difference in quality: Their heads are at a different level
(WORLD)