“I believe we were the better side today on the court, and we deserved the win. After a very poor performance in our last Euroleague match, we are very pleased with this win as we controlled the game well. We had a pretty good start into the game and gained momentum, but Heurtel’s three fouls early on and Diebler’s injury caused us to lose control in the second quarter, allowing Karşıyaka to make a comeback. Still, we controlled the game pretty well, had good ball movement, and played well as a team. As a result of this team play, Cedi Osman reached his career-high 27 points. The important thing for us was to put on some good team play, rather than having Cedi Osman or another player reach high scores. The match against Karşıyaka was the first leg of a two-match road trip. Next, we will play a road game in the Euroleague. Just like Lokomotiv Kuban did last week, Karşıyaka tried to play with frequent switches and to create mismatches, but we played much better today. Especially when both of our power forwards played together, we were very creative with lots of passes. I would like to wish Karşıyaka success in their upcoming games. İzmir is a real city of basketball. We will prepare for our next matches, keep up what we do and proceed.”

Anadolu Efes’s young talent Ahmet Düverioğlu also stated his thoughts: “As a team we prepared well for the match, and worked hard. We played well as a team both on defense and on offense. We fought so well. We knew that this match would not be easy. We are happy to be on the winning side. I would also like to congratulate Karşıyaka.”