Valencia Basket- Dreamland Gran Canaria post-game quotes: Pedro Martínez

“Their first five minutes were excellent—hitting a three with a foul, a buzzer-beater three… they played at a very high level. We definitely need to talk about it because it’s happening to us often: we have to start games better. But we should also—maybe not applaud—but at least acknowledge the good performance of the opponent. They had a great first half with solid shooting percentages, playing at a fast pace, moving the ball quickly, and we were out of rhythm.

That leads to becoming apprehensive. When you’re behind on the scoreboard, everything looks worse, you miss more, and we missed a lot of shots. Something that really concerned me in the second quarter is that we even passed up some open shots, because players were feeling the pressure too much. Honestly, that’s what I liked the least. Because I believe you can’t play while dwelling on what just happened—otherwise you put too much pressure on yourself. So all of that happened, and it’s negative.

But let’s also talk about the positives: the team managed to come back, didn’t give up, and in the second half, some players who hadn’t played well in the first really stepped up. Chris Jones had been inactive for a long time—he started training again this week—and clearly, his first-half performance was that of a player lacking rhythm, confidence, and that competitive edge. In the second half, he was a different player. Let’s focus on that as a positive and not dwell too harshly on the first half, whether for individual players or the team.

I always say, it’s not all about winning, but let’s not fall into the trap of thinking everything is a disaster just because we start badly. Like we said before the game, matches last 40 minutes, and although starting poorly isn’t ideal, usually it’s more important to finish strong. We had a great reaction—the third quarter was excellent, 28-12.

They’re a very good team—that’s why they played in the EuroCup final and Copa del Rey semifinals. They had already beaten us twice, so they came in confident, thinking ‘we’ve already beaten Valencia twice, we can do it again,’ and they played very well. We have to understand that, naturally, opponents get motivated against us and bring the confidence of the great season they’re having. They’re a very good team.

What concerns me more, aside from the fact that I hope we can start games better (though I’m not exactly sure how, because I believe our guys are focused), is that if we were starting games poorly due to carelessness, lack of interest, or apathy, then yes, that would be more serious. But that’s not the case. So we have no choice but to trust and persevere.

The thing I liked least about my team today was how we played a bit affected by our earlier mistakes. That’s something we need to talk about—we need to move past our misses, the opponent’s successes. If we’re 2 for 20, we still need to keep shooting and play with determination and confidence. That second-quarter mindset can’t happen again. And if we miss, we defend—there’s no other option”