Sport24.az
"Our main player, Ceylon Shaw, had only one practice to test himself since returning to our ranks." This was stated by "Absheron" head coach Erhan Toker, Sport24.az reports.
He evaluated the defeat to NTD in the Azerbaijan Basketball League. Toker stated that some of his players did not show the desired game: "Shaw tried to recover and play. Our young players, Mahammad Huseynli and Ismayil Abdullayev, made a bad impression in the first half. The opponent kept them under pressure, and after unsuccessful shots, the score difference began to increase. This increased self-confidence in NTD, but the opposite happened to us. We experienced a mental breakdown. Towards the end, we started to react to what the opponent was doing. Mahammad Huseynli started playing well. He benefited us both in defense and attack. Nevertheless, we could not close the gap and lost."
According to the head coach, another reason for the defeat is the holding of consecutive games in the first month of the new year: "We don't have enough time to train as we want. That is, we don't have much time to change something, to improve. We can't do anything. This part of the season was difficult for us. I also want to express my opinion about one issue. Our team is a young, low-budget team. It's like they look down on us. I think so."
Erhan Toker also commented on the referee decisions: "I also feel this in the decisions made by the referees. I may be wrong. We may play badly in this game, but I cannot say that the match was managed very well. It's like a lot of decisions were made against us. I'm not saying that someone is doing this knowingly. It's just that in the fouls that were clearly in our favor, the desired decision was not made. Maybe this is due to the body language of our players. This may also confuse the referees. Putting all this aside, I can say that our team will recover and win again. I congratulate the opponent NTD team for this match."
It should be noted that "Absheron" lost to NTD with a score of 77:87.
