“It was a very challenging match today, and Beşiktaş played well. We, on the other hand, played two very different halves. Beşiktaş reacted well in the first two quarters, scoring 27 points in the first quarter and a total of 49 points in the first half, which shows that we couldn’t react well enough. In the second half, our lads tried to take control and managed to find rhythm to some extent, which wasn’t sufficient. We missed too many uncontested shots. We hit only 5 of our 21 three-point attempts with 21%, which is really low for us. This is one of the reasons that our offense was not on the desired level. We had a tough match after the game against Olympiacos on Thursday. We didn’t have much time to recover mentally after Thursday. The team played three big matches in six days. The first one was against Karşıyaka on Monday. Karşıyaka was going to play on Friday at Moscow, so the game being on Monday is normal. We played an exhaustive match against Olympiacos and now, we just played against Beşiktaş with less than 48 hours in between. To me, this means that the players of a team representing the country in Euroleague are not being supported, which is not correct in my opinion. We requested to play on Sunday, but that was not accepted due to reasons arising from the broadcaster. I believe that the English or German football leagues should not be considered superior to Turkish Basketball League. I’m not looking for any excuses for this loss as a coach, but it just doesn’t make sense. I’m only looking for good intentions. And criteria... The criteria for fouls, travelling calls and other things in the match. The criteria were not the same for the two teams. I would like to congratulate Beşiktaş for their victory. The possessions of our big man Ahmet can be given as an example for this. Go ahead and analyze all the possessions. I’m ready to help about this. We need to keep working. The season is long, and we have to work without making excuses. As a coach, my duty is to prepare my players before matches. However, I can’t pressurize them. If I do that, they will state that they are not machines. We prepared our team to this match with a single training session only. This is one of the main reasons. One of the reasons that our team could not react well enough...”

Efes’s young talent Furkan Korkmaz also stated his thoughts: “We were unable to reflect our team chemistry onto the court throughout the match. Beşiktaş managed to capitalize on our simple mistakes. They played a good game. Congratulations on them. We will play against Limoges in the Euroleague next week. That game is really crucial. We have to find our rhythm, and we have to prepare as good as we can for this game...”