“It’s such a scrappy victory that at the same time is very sweet,” said Grindavík’s captain Ólafur Ólafsson after a highly dramatic victory over Val in the teams’ first game in the semifinals of the Iceland men’s basketball tournament.
“We are behind and chasing the whole game. We get over when there are 26 seconds left, get a stop and win. It’s great to be able to beat this strong Valslið,” he said.
Grindvíking started the game very badly and had the most occasional problems with meeting. Ólafur said about that:
“Valsmen were very good throughout the game. We weren’t meeting well, especially in the first half. I think I have 0 out of eight shots, which doesn’t happen often at home.
Crazy character and a great team win that we manage to scrape together here in the second half. I’m happy with my team and the fact that we managed to defend our home ground.”
Valsmen came up with a new defensive variant that surprised Grindvíking
You start the game very hard. You guys scored 11 points in the first quarter and it was like you didn’t bother playing this game to begin with.
“They brought a different style of defense to the game. They were all over Jeremy Pargo and then there were kind of four back there and the rest of us were getting a lot of shots. I think it just caught us by surprise and caught us off guard.
We just have to prepare ourselves if they are going to do this again and meet them from the shots as well if they are going to give us such open ammunition. What surprised me the most is that I’m not used to getting such galloping shots. But the Valsmen were good throughout the game and we just managed to scrape together this victory.”
Ólafur says the team is ready for the conflict that follows the duel with Val
Valsmenn are extremely determined and make themselves feel good as they are strong. Is Grindavík’s team ready to face Valsmenni in at least three games under such pressure?
“Yeah, we just need to take them on hard too. This shouldn’t surprise us. We’re all experienced in this league and when you’re this far into the playoffs, the defenses get tougher.”
What does it take to take a 2-0 lead in the series?
“We need to show up even more focused for that game and of course win. We need to take a good look at what we did badly tonight and also what we did well. We need to try to find better solutions because if we don’t show up ready, we’ll just lose. But we managed to sort ourselves out tonight,” said Ólafur in an interview with mbl.is.
