Audrius Prakuraitis

Two games more, two defeats more. It’s very difficult period for me like a coach, for the players too.
Ploiesti. We knew that we had to face the team that is very strong and very well balanced. We analyzed and showed to our players the strengths of this team and its very only few weaknesses. When we play a team like Ploiesti and we obtained the home court advantage, we have to play. Before the game I asked guys to be more self-confident, to trust each other and to help each other. Generally game wasn’t bad, we fought, but too many lost balls and free throws …
Thanks for our fans who supported us even after a bad start. We felt this support, and the team managed to stay calm.
Pitesti. Strong team, but vincible. In that game we were very nervous and shot poorly, made a bad decisions on offense and defense, we wasn’t aggressive on offense, but I need to say that Pitesti was played good. Big lost was Marius because of injury, we lost player who was a leader in previous games, we lost pg backup, backup for weakness position. In another hand, Romanian players had good chance to show themselves. I get mad, when I see that they don’t perform at that level. At the same time, I don’t thought it’s a good idea to keep them on the bench. I was tried to find players who is ready to play hard, players who can play with heart, with personality and immediately put the game into the direction what we wanted it to go. But…
The result of the game was very disappointing. Obviously, I was frustrated. It’s always like this when you lose.
The crucial point is that every team has to learn how to win. Sooner or later. It might be now, it might be later, but we have to learn it. The sooner, the better. With a new team, when we head into a important game, we can see who is who, who will support you, or who will shy away.
I said for guys that we must win together, we must feel like a unit going against the opponent. Every game, every practice, every day, together. It’s that simple.
So, we have to move on. We can’t to stay and keep looking backwards.

I was looking forward to returning to Tirgu Mures to continue the work that was started by an ambitious club in last season. I appreciate all of the support I have received from fans of team, team president and sponsors.

We have not big budget this season compared with other teams, we created good new team, but we have difficult preparation period, small number of preparation games, bad luck with the choosing players…
The opening was really hard as we lost three games in a row. I‘m really sorry about that.

From the first practices everything is coming out very difficult. It’s hard for the players, they are thinking a lot about what they are requested to do rather than just setting their instincts and playing off them. Guys are getting to know each other slowly, they understand my ideas slowly and I slowly understand their way of seeing basketball. As a result, in first games we were mechanical and didn’t have a good flow. Sometimes we made very good strides, sometimes committed unexpected mistakes.
But that’s the way it is. We didn’t have enough preparation games in the weeks before the championship start.

As a coaching staff, we working hard to prepare a team for games. I hope that the players will play fast and strong, find easy ways to the basket, fastbreaks, etc, which will make the game spectacular for everybody. I define a good team attitude by how well the players accept their roles and their responsibilities to the team.

The difference is that here expectations are even higher.

We need to live with the short time we have, put in effort and make the most of it. I ask players to understand that maybe we don’t play nice basketball now, but at the same we have to try to be consistent, win as many games as possible and get the feeling that we’re starting to play well together.
We need to improve our defense, rebounding , transition and fast-break points. Concentrating on them will help us win games and not depend on our ability to play nice basketball. When we get to know each other much better, games will become smoother.

I always want my team to be as strong as possible, and to win as many games as possible.
We’ll see. I hope for the best. It’s yet another challenge, another way to play and coach basketball.
I‘m really hope that our fans will support us even after a bad start.