ARG – “One on one” with Carlos Delfino

LAS VEGAS (FIBA Americas Championship) – From worse to better, that is the kind of tournament Carlos Delfino is having here in Las Vegas. The player, recently acquired by the Toronto Raptors (NBA), finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals, in Argentina’s third game in the tournament.

Could you take the bad taste out of your mouth, after playing like you did tonight?

Not really, because we won and that’s what matters. We have been giving away the first quarters, the teams are surprising us, and that’s a mistake we can’t afford to. Anyway, we’ve been improving this from game to game, and during the game when we turned things around.

Today's game was one of your best in quite a while.

We played well. We didn’t get trapped in Mexico’s game. We tried to pursue them, but we couldn’t match their speed. After that, we imposed our rithym, getting inside the zone, opening our outside shooters. Paolo (Quinteros) and Pablo (Prigioni) had a good start, maybe the game wasn’t for the big men. Roman (Gonzalez) played little time, but we were smart enough to look for the open spaces. Leo Gutierrez contributed a lot, and Scola ran like he was little kid; everything went right.

You were the best scorer.

Yes, but that doesn’t matter to me. The important thing is for the team to win. Before the second half, we were talking about that. If I have to go scoreless, for my team to win, I will do it. It’s a collective effort. Last time I checked, you can’t win the game with only one player. We have so many options in our offense; that is why somebody always comes up.

11 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals…

I loved it. I like to play doing a lot of stuff. When I get to play like that, it’s very exciting. I hope that I can keep working like that. We knew we will get a lot of shots from them, lots of rebounds from our forwards, lots of inside-out game. The team is playing unselfishly.

You're really playing well as a forward.

The things is that in Europe, you face big guards, while in America, the players are quicker and smaller. It’s not only me who’s suffering as a guard. We came with a big, solid team. It is true that I’m playing better as a forward and Quinteros as a guard. There are some guards with 40 pounds less than me, and they get away from me (laughs); that’s makes things very hard. We have to ask Sergio (Hernandez) in which position he wants me.

Fabian Garcia
FIBA Americas