Batum interview: "We will be ready for Spain"

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Just after the defeat by Brazil in their final preparation match, Nicolas Batum gave us a few moments to comment on the Blues preparation and their expectations for the world championships.

Comments on the last match?

 A good first half, I think that we had a lot of satisfaction for our matchup at first, we relaxed a little too much for five minutes, and we payed for it.  After we tried to come back, but they were too consistent in their efforts to finish the match.  All the same, it’s reassuring, because we played so well in the first half, and we know that we can do it for 40 minutes, so that’s what we’ll need to do at the world championships.

Is it  fair to say that your preparation has alternated between very very good, and very bad ?

Yes, I think that we have a little too much lack of consistency for my liking, but if we can remove this problem for Turkey, we can do really big things.  This will show in certain sequences, we have a really extraordinary level of intensity!

 You think that you are ready ?

Yes, because we have really learned a lot about oursleves, learned how to approach matches well. We have made a lot of errors and now we know that these are things we should not do.  I think that we will watch lots of video, I know that tonight we will all get a USB card with a montage of practically all the action from our preparation, so that we will be ready for Spain!

 Preparation is finished now, what do you think of this French team ?

We’ve talked a lot about the absence of Tony, Ronny, Joakim, but we still have a team that can do a few things.  We have some good players, some very good young players have come through.  For example, we have seen the impact of Andrew, Edwin, and Fabien, when they came on the scene, they had an immediate impact.  Yannick, it’s extraordinary what he’s done with Nando at the [mène, I think this means ‘point’], after we had the performances of Boris and Flo who managed the team well [the French is ‘après on a des cadres comme Boris et Flo qui gèrent bien l’équipe’, I’m not certain of my translation here], Ali who has had some big performances, Alain who made a good entrance tonight, so we really have a sufficiently homogenous group who can be really consistent and do some nice things in Turkey.

 You are leaving for Turkey feeling confident ?

 Yes!

Comments on the match against Spain ?

 This will be a difficult match against the favorites, world champions, European champions, and Olympic silver medallists, perhaps the second-best team in the world, if not the best.  We will have no pressure, but I think that we will have a little revenge to take after last year, so we will try to win this match and get a good start to the competitions.

 Your expectations for these world championships ?

 I’ve always said, for me the minimum is the quarterfinals.

Interview by BehindBasketball.com