Post-match video report: Golnoor's second-half comeback in the coach's words
Golnoor Isfahan travelled to Sanandaj on Thursday, 7 Aban, for week two of the Iranian men's basketball Premier League and lost 81-75 to Pas Kurdistan. A post-match video report by IRNA, Iran’s state news agency, tells the story of the night through the Golnoor coach.
On how well his team knew the opponent, Shahbani said: "We had only seen one game of Pas, but from that one game we had been able to anticipate and identify a few things. We knew that in the first half Pas, given the way they play, could be very dangerous."
That reading of the game proved right: "Unfortunately we made a lot of mistakes in the first half, and Pas made good use of them and opened a gap."
The second half looked different. Golnoor responded in the locker room: "Between the halves we managed to fix our weak points and work through the problems, and we made that gap up in the second half." Aran Davoudi's side won the second half 42-35, and the 13-point fightback kept the game alive to the last seconds.
The hosts still had the last word. "In the key moments Pas Kurdistan made a few very difficult shots count," Shahbani explained, "and unfortunately we were not good enough from the free-throw line. We made mistakes and in the end we could not win the game."
It is Golnoor's second defeat in the first two weeks of the 1405-1406 season - a young team that showed in Sanandaj it can come back from a deficit, and now takes that experience into the games ahead.
