“It was a thrilling, tough and interesting game today. Both teams had ups and downs in each quarter. Today, we had a pretty good start into the game. We scored 28 points in the first quarter, and were leading by nine. Starting with the second quarter, Darüşşafaka Doğuş became more aggressive and got 13 transition points. Our defense and control of the game was not on a desired level, yet we managed to control the game really well in the final two minutes of the quarter, and we displayed our real character in the final moments. I don’t want to talk a lot about the referees, but their management was poor. In the first round of Euroleague, matches between 24 teams are picked from the best 100 referees. At Top 16, the best of the best get to referee these matches. These referees are generally accredited by FIBA and Euroleague. Today, the lead referee was pretty good but I can’t say the same about the assistant referees. They did a bad job refereeing a match of this caliber and keeping the game under control. I just don’t understand the Basketball Federation’s criteria for assigning referees. Of course, this is my personal opinion. We will play another match against Darüşşafaka Doğuş this Friday. It will be another good and difficult game. Our trip for Lokomotiv Kuban was really exhaustive. I can understand to a degree that my players, especially in the final moments, lost their concentration and had some hard times. We will learn our lessons from this match, prepare as good as we can for the game against Darüşşafaka Doğuş on Friday, and do our best to win.”

Anadolu Efes’s young talent Cedi Osman also stated his thoughts: “First of all, I would like to congratulate Darüşşafaka Doğuş. They fought really well. It was a very enjoyable game. Both teams wanted to win it a lot. However, we were more enthusiastic about it. We got a little bit demoralized after the match against Lokomotiv Kuban. We simply gave the match away in the final seconds. By winning this one, I think we compensated that to some extent. We will now play another match against Darüşşafaka Doğuş on Friday in the Euroleague. We will learn the important lessons from this match and be ready for that one. We will do our absolute best to win. One more time, I would like to congratulate Darüşşafaka Doğuş.”