Valencia Basket- UCAM Murcia post-game quotes: Pedro Martínez

“Obviously, the first thing is not to take any credit away from the opponent. They played better than us — tactically, with more energy, and with better accuracy — and they were really good, right? So, first of all, credit to them. They beat us because they played better, and we have to congratulate them for that. Having said that, there are also other things that are more on us. Things related to our mindset, to what's happened this week, and the results we've had. I wish I could say that we were able to move on and be more focused on today’s game. I wish I could say that — because that’s what I tried to do and convey to the players — but it’s clear that it wasn’t the case. There was a negative emotional aspect from the team, from the players, from all of us — I don’t want to single out the players — but as a group, we weren’t in the right frame of mind. Everything affected us a lot — the poor start, which surely had something to do tactically with the zone defense — but it’s not normal that in the first half, even though we took about 80% good shots, we went 1 for 17 on three-pointers.

 I think that leads to a loss of confidence. Obviously, when you miss a lot, the other team gains confidence, and you start defending many situations at a disadvantage. Those long rebounds from missed threes, and missing that much, led to fast-break situations for them. They’re not even a team that usually stands out for playing fast, but with so many misses, they found more of those opportunities. So it’s a bit of everything: the emotional side, the opponent’s tactics, the momentum of the game, which developed very early. We got within four points in the first half, but then had two really bad minutes in the second quarter, which left us going into halftime with worse feelings than we probably should have had without those last two minutes. All in all, the start of the third quarter wasn’t good either — very inaccurate — and without hitting shots, it’s difficult. For me, the lack of shooting accuracy also has to do with the emotional state, with how we are — a bit negative, not sad, but thinking too much about the past instead of staying focused on the present. All of that led us to have a poor performance"