Darussafaka Dogus' Dairis Bertans: We have to be ready for every single game

Dairis Bertans was literally on fire last thursday against Baskonia on Round 14 of the Euroleague as Darüşşafaka Doğuş got a big win over Baskonia Vitoria: 98-89. He scored 29 points on a 11-13 shooting night tough he came in from the bench in 26 minutes of play.

Darüşşafaka Doğuş head coach David Blatt praised his guy after the game: “Obviously, Bertans gave us an exceptional contribution and he deserves to have a game like that. He’s hard-working, team oriented player who cares about right things. Certainly he was fantastic.”

• I was fine because for me coming off the bench is sometimes easier than starting. When you come into the game after five minutes you bring in some fresh energy on the court. Maybe the guys on the court are not that fresh and sometimes it’s easier to get going as you score some points, are aggressive on both ends. That’s what I did against Baskonia. It was really good.

• Off course, every win is good for our self-confidence. Especially this game as I mentioned Baskonia was the only team that really beat us in the first half of the season. It was very important for us to comeback and to play a really good quality of basketball over Baskonia.

• Basically this season you can’t take an night off as a team! Because every team, even the last team in the standings, will going to come off and fight on the court like a final, like a war. You have to be ready every night for every single game. That’s probably the biggest challenge we have this season.

• Obviously it’s the highest level of Europe. You play against the best players in Europe. It’s obviously harder than to play in the Eurocup. But overall it’s basketball and we all know as players how to play this game.

• That’s my job! I have to be able to score behind the arc. And I’m happy that I’m able to do it that way. But we’re only in the middle of the season and I have to keep going, even be better until the end of the season.

+ 1) Do you consider you improved since the first half of the season?

• I would say we’re a better team: Because we put together a new team. There were a lot of players who didn’t play together before this season. It takes some time to get used to each other. But we’ve been playing better game by game. Hopefully I would say that now we know each other better which is going to improve our play.