Valencia Basket- La Laguna Tenerife post-game quotes: Pedro Martínez

“I’d say what I liked the most was when, in the third quarter, they closed the gap to three points. It was something we expected, but we stayed calm, we handled it well. We understood that the game—and the series—is going to be like that. It’s going to be tight against a good team with very experienced players who have moments of great basketball. Even though we dominated them, for example in the second quarter, when we made a small run and went up by 15, 10 at halftime, it’s perfectly normal for them to come back, which is what happened. They got within three, and what I really liked was the look on our players’ faces—it was the look of: 'this is how it is, and the job’s not done yet, we have to keep doing things the right way.' Not nervous, not overly relaxed either, just focused. That comes from having a deep respect for the opponent. In the end, these things are like communicating vessels. I think we defended well, though not necessarily well enough to explain those numbers. They only scored six points in the last quarter, and when Josep Puerto hit a three and they called a timeout, I think that’s when they mentally said, ‘this game’s done,’ and their focus shifted to recovering as much as possible for the game in 48 hours. I think that’s understandable, because the current score in the playoff is 1-0, and the point differential doesn’t really matter. That’s what made the final score look more lopsided than the actual balance of the game up to that point”