Barça's coach, Sarunas Jasikevicius, assured on Wednesday that "the keys to beating Real Madrid are the same" as in recent times, despite the replacement of Chus Mateo by Pablo Laso on the white bench. "We are concerned about the game of possessions. In the last Endesa League final they shot about ten more times at the basket. In the Super Cup we were quite good in this aspect," explained the coach of the Catalan team on the eve of the first European Classic of the course at the Palau Blaugrana.
Jasikevicius underlined other aspects of the game: "That they don't shoot free three-pointers, the defensive and attacking rebound will be other keys. In the big games there is talk of easy points, of counterattacks and not letting them enter with the strong hand".
"As a Barça player, there isn't a better match. There will be a lot of emotions, you will have to know how to control them and have a lot of concentration. We have very experienced people, who have been through many matches of the greatest rivalry. They know what awaits them and the magnitude of this match", he explained about the team's motivation.
On the other hand, Jasikevicius admitted that Barça comes with a little more pressure due to the defeat on the first day against Olympiacos. Not so much because of the classification, since "this is very long and at the end of the course this will not influence", he pointed out, but because "the sensations are more important than the results" at this point in the year. "Although at Barça you always have to win, for me the most important thing is if we are taking steps forward, doing things better, and I think that over time it will be like that", he completed.
Regarding the condition of Kyle Kuric, who suffered a traumatic brain injury on October 2 in the match against Cazoo Baskonia, Jasikevicius assured that they are "waiting for the latest tests, which have gone quite well so far, but there is still time" to reappear. "We always have to pay attention to the market, but right now we're waiting a bit. We haven't made a decision yet," explained the Lithuanian coach when asked if Barça is considering reinforcing the squad.
Finally, Jasikevicius spoke about the knee operation that will be carried out this Thursday on Sergi Martínez: "He was suffering. One day he was better and the other worse. This tires the player a lot, who has to know that he is healthy, and Sergi had been without being 100%. We have done everything possible to avoid the operation, but this was the last option and it had to be done".
