This Sunday, Lenovo Tenerife will play the first match of the ACB quarterfinals against Barça at the Palau Blaugrana, a place “the island team wants to attack,” according to coach Txus Vidorreta in a press conference.
“We will go to the disadvantage of having absences as important as the absences of Jaime Fernández, Aaron Doornekamp and Gio Shermadini, but at the same time with the hope of improving our performance from the last away games,” said coach.
Vidorreta does not expect a “pressured” Barça Basket because despite leaving the Euroleague Final Four, he believes that the Catalan team has “reached all the fronts” this year and “has the advantage provided by history”.
According to the coach, in these playoffs “there are four clear favorites with a big difference from all the other four outsiders.”
Among the main threats of Roger Grimau’s team, Vidorreta highlighted the defensive changes and the high level of physicality that players like Satoransky demand from Marcelinho Huertas.
Barça has won the island team in every match this season, although it is true that in the league the two victories of the Blaugrana are close, while in the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey the defeat of the Aurinegros was very heavy (108-76). ).
“We have to try to defend them all as much as possible and better than we did in the second quarter in the Cup,” he said, precisely because it was a period in which Lenovo scored 40 points.
Among the options to improve his performance in the final stage of the season, hampered by injuries, Vidorreta has the arrival of Serbian center Oliver Stevic and the possible recovery of Sasu Salin.
“I hope we can get someone back, the only one who has a chance to come is Sasu, we had hope that Aaron would come but it was impossible,” he lamented.
The manager reckoned that Stevic was “helping” the tie, although he admitted that due to the style of play, Barça were not the ideal rivals for the interior.
“It will be complicated because they defend in a different way and the centers who are able to share the ball, as in their case, don’t shine as much,” he said.
Vidorreta also appreciated the work of the group throughout the season, which achieved the objectives of fighting for all the titles at stake and, above all, considering the difficulty of this end of the year with the accumulation of absences.
“I think a lot of merit has been done this year, we finished sixth, tied for fourth, again, many years have passed,” said the Aurinegro coach, who recalled that Tenerife had “the smallest field in the ACB”, so they are “living the dream season after season”.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
