Ergin Ataman revealed when Shane Larkin is expected to play / News - Basketnews.com

Credit: ZUMAPRESS.com - Scanpix Credit ZUMAPRESS.com - Scanpix

After a friendly game victory against Poland with a final score of 94-78 on Sunday, the Turkish national team head coach Ergin Ataman answered some questions.

Ataman was happy with how the preparation is going so far and talked about what is coming next for the Turkish national team.

"We are still in the early stages of our preparation, after our 9-day camp. But despite that, things are good so far," started Ataman.

"We are better every game and moving forward within our aims. Shane Larkin, Alperen Sengun, and Sertac Sanli did not play today who are members of the main core," said Ataman.

"Despite that, we shared the ball well and did good defense at times. Sehmus Hazer and recent call-up Ercan Osmani did well despite not playing for a long time during the summer," Ataman added.

Ataman was happy with the attendance in friendly games in Istanbul but believes more media coverage should be allocated to basketball.

"What makes me particularly happy is that I think we re-ignited the spirit of 12 Giant Men again. That matters the most," the Turkish coach explained.

"The fans filled the arena but the media needs to give more coverage to our efforts, allocating some more focus from football to basketball, I believe," added Ataman.

"On Tuesday we are flying to Athens and going to play 3 more games there, starting with Wednesday," Ataman reminded the Turkish national team's upcoming schedule.

Ataman has also revealed when Shane Larkin is expected to play.

"Larkin is in quite good shape, taking place in practices and also, some individual workouts. Probably he will start to play with those games in Greece," said Ataman.

He [Larkin] is familiar with the system and we didn't want to wore him out yet. We need Larkin fresh for the Latvia and Serbia games for the FIBA WC Qualifiers and of course, our main target, Eurobasket 2022," Ataman concluded.

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