On Sunday, March 9th local time, the quarter-finals of the Italian Superlegga playoffs were held, and Milan, where Tatsunori Otsuka plays, faced Civitanova. Milan won 3-2 (27-29, 25-23, 18-25, 25-23, 17-15).
Otsuka started on the bench for this game, but came on as a substitute and scored 16 points, earning him the MVP award for his performance on both offense and defense.
We spoke with Otsuka after the match.
T： Congratulations on winning the match and becoming the MVP. First of all, how do you feel looking back on the match?
Otsuka: Civitanova won the Coppa Italia and I think they are a team with momentum right now. But last year, when I watched Ishikawa's game in Milan, I saw a lot of footage of them beating higher-ranked teams, even though they were ranked lower in the qualifiers (regular season). If we come this far, the first team to win three games will be the winner, so we talked as a team about starting from zero again and fighting each game one by one, and I think today was a game where we were able to embody that as a team.
T: I thought Otsuka's individual performance was very good today, what are your thoughts looking back on it?
Otsuka: Yes, when I come in, the team is often not doing well, so if it's okay, I think they'll just go as is (without me), so even though we're often not doing well, I think I was able to show what I've been working on today, both defensively and offensively, so I'll stick to that. My sense of spikes has improved a lot, both in practice and personally, so I've been talking with the coach about how to improve my straight and cross spikes while watching videos, and I think that showed up well. I think I've been getting more shots to get through to the inside, especially against high blocks. I've been practicing that a lot. As my line spikes have gotten a lot better, I've been practicing another inner spike, and I think that's made my balls a lot more powerful.
T： We still need two more wins to get through to the quarterfinals. Any thoughts on the upcoming playoffs?
Otsuka: I think this is what the playoffs are like. Looking at yesterday's game, Perugia was no exception, and (none of the teams) were winning easily, so I think this playoff is that difficult. Just because we won one game doesn't mean we've taken a step forward, but we don't think it's meaningful unless we win two more games, so I think we just have to take each game one by one as a team, and that's all I want to think about.
Photo: Author
English 
Japanese