“I can’t imagine that there isn’t a revolt and a bang on the part of the Roca Team”
At the microphone of Monaco-Info, he commented on the crazy epic of the Roca Team in the EuroLeague, stopped in the furnace of Olympiakos. David Cozette, a former sports journalist converted to the hotel industry, was at Gaston-Médecin on Wednesday for match 4 against ASVEL.
He gives us his analysis before the decisive match in Villeurbanne.
Your analysis of these four final matches against ASVEL?
They are like the Roca Team this season, that is to say very high highs and very low lows. She is unpredictable. When you expect the worst, you get the best, and vice versa. It happens very often that on long series like this, the truth of one day is never that of the next day. There are often big discrepancies one way or another. The history of basketball is full of reversals. This game 4 surprised many. The context was ideal. The title could be celebrated at home. Everyone may have forgotten that you have to play a game and go to war.
How to explain these air pockets?
This Wednesday evening, the lack of collective was glaring. It was caricatural at the end of the match: we saw Mike James and Dwayne Bacon chain the baskets, alone against the rest of the world. They couldn’t win without team play. On the other hand, Mike James single-handedly qualified his team against Strasbourg. Without him, by now, she would already be on vacation. This season, they have won a lot of games like that. This Monegasque team upsets our basketball benchmarks. But against ASVEL, this Wednesday, it was not enough.
Can the specter of lost finals play on the minds of players?
I do not think so. When you are able, in the hell of Olympiakos, to be on the verge of winning a EuroLeague match 5, you must be able to win one from everywhere, and therefore at Astroball against a team of his level. They are competitors. The Roca Team is a team that works so much on pride because its emblematic leader is a very proud player. The fact that they were hurt with the defeat in front of their public, I cannot imagine that there is not a revolt and a bang on their part. If they manage to find themselves together and to play on this aspect of wounded pride, they are capable of it.
You attended match 4 at Gaston-Médecin. Your view of the atmosphere in this room?
At the kick-off and during the first actions, I had never known such fervor here, even during the old French championship finals played by Monaco.
We felt the people on edge and passionate. Unfortunately, it quickly fell.
What more will the Roca Team need next season to perform better?
Let Mike James bring his homie Kevin Durant (laughs). Even with a talented coach who continues, Sasa Obradovic, even if the team is reinforced by strong EuroLeague players, one should not think that the final four in EuroLeague is already assured. It will take chemistry. The past season has been unreal and marked by exploits. I don’t want to, but it may not be automatic next year.
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