Some close losses that could have gone either way but have left Bahcesehir Koleji Istanbul winless so far has not dampened the optimism of big man Deniz Kilicli. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Deniz Kilicli, Bahcesehir: 'Nothing goes to waste'
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6 mins read
We have been really unlucky in the 7DAYS EuroCup until now. We had very good chances to win four of our six games but couldn't do it. We are a new team, too. None of the players had played with each other before. This is my ninth season as a professional and I feel like getting the early wins, starting really well and then going down towards the end is worse than losing the beginning, learning and progressing every day. I feel like we are progressing pretty well. When you look at the first game against JL Bourg and the UNICS Kazan game, there is a night-and-day difference in us. We try to add something to our basketball in every game, team-wise. And individually, everybody is working hard and there are very good characters on this team. We never had problems with that, and I think this is one of the best teams I've been in so far since I became professional, in terms of friendship and chemistry, on and off the court.
"We have the potential to be very, very good."
We are a new team, putting the pieces together; I see it every day. We put something else in every week and, like you saw, we lost some very close games. It takes one possession to decide a game, and the team that has a couple of players who played with each other for a couple years, or teams that have players that played in the same system for a couple years, all that helps you in those crunch moments. We are doing a great job. Everybody knows their role, from the player who plays 35 minutes to the one that never plays. I think that is very important because every season is like a marathon. I am not just talking about the EuroCup, but also about the Turkish League. It's a marathon. We'll hopefully have 10 months of basketball and if you can put something in your game and you can get the chemistry every day, I guess that's the most important thing in a season. And we have potential to be very, very good, a very special team. We are going through that. We are going to be one of the strongest teams in Turkey, and to try to win some EuroCup games that we feel we deserve.
We will play against UNICS at home this week after losing against them in Kazan at the buzzer. I guess that's what I meant when I said these are the things that we think we deserve. Everybody that watched those games has a different opinion. But as players and the coaching staff, we think we deserve those games against Reyer, UNICS, Partizan and our last game Bourg. I feel like we should have beat them but if you feel you deserve something, you have to go out there and show it. I feel like we had that attitude as a team. When you lose, most of the time people get frustrated, especially after these close games. It's heartbreaking. But at the same time, it seemed like, 'OK, you know, we were really close but now let's see what's going to happen.' We think we deserve it. And we've got to go out there to show that we deserve those games.
"All the games we played have helped us."
It is no surprise that Erick Green is leading the EuroCup and the Turkish League in scoring. It is always great to have an all-around scorer like Erick. I wouldn't say that he is just a shooter. Of course he can shoot, but his one-on-one game is very strong. He also can finish inside. There's multiple layers to his offense, and as a big man, it makes your job so much easier because you just set a screen and see what he does and then you play off that. Every opposing team has to have some ways to stop him and that always leaves a couple of guys open. All this creates the chemistry that I am talking about. In the beginning of the year, we couldn't find those open guys, especially in crunch situations, but now we do. Now, I see that especially with Alex Perez and Erick, a couple of guys are on them and they see what it is going on. In our last game, Josh Owens found his ways to score and Erick was one of the main reasons for that. I always like to play with guys like that because it makes my job easier! You set a screen, get open and then you see what happens.
We have to try to win as many games as possible and use this experience in the Turkish League. In my opinion, nothing ever goes to waste. Not in basketball, not in life. I don't think anything goes to waste as long as you get the right lessons from the experiences you have. All the games we played have helped us, and still are helping us, to find our chemistry in certain situations. And from now on, like I said, we're going to try to go out there and win those games that we think we deserve and show people that we are here. We just didn't play the last possessions of those games as we wanted. When you play the EuroCup and the Turkish League, you play high-level basketball twice a week. It can be very tiring, but at the same time, it gives you two chances each week to see what works and what doesn't. I feel like we're going to use those experiences and that is going to help us a lot towards the Turkish League. I think will be a very strong competitor in our league because of that.