Bartzokas: «It was a very bad game for us»
Giorgos Bartzokas spoke at the press conference after Olympiacos’ game in Barcelona and analyzed the reasons behind the defeat.
In his opening statement, Giorgos Bartzokas said: “First of all, congratulations to Barcelona. They played very well and deserved to win. For us, it was a very bad game, especially defensively. We failed in every aspect we had planned for this game. In our defence on Punter, on Clyburn, in protecting the ball, in protecting the paint from offensive rebounds. In the end, we had 19 defensive rebounds, and they had 19 offensive ones. This is part of competitive spirit, part of concentration, part of sticking to the game plan and to what is important in a game to stay competitive against a team that plays with rhythm.
If you want to win it, first you must get all the 50–50 balls, or at least half of them. Barca got all of them and eventually won the game. They deserved it with the way they played, and we have to think very carefully as a team about what is important in winning basketball games. It is not important just to score 20 points and have everyone be happy, but also to do the dirty work of basketball: getting rebounds, playing defence. Today we were soft.”
Then, he got to answer a question about what led to the defeat: “All the players were far from our expectations. They didn’t follow the game plan; they didn’t do the things we had said we would do. We made many mistakes and many wrong defensive decisions at the beginning of the game. Even though we controlled the game at halftime, we started the third quarter by making 4 or 5 consecutive mistakes and doing everything wrong. Even at the jump ball with Vezenkov, we committed an unsportsmanlike foul, we lost the rebound on the free throw, they scored, then we lost another rebound and they scored again. When you allow almost 10 unanswered points in nearly one minute, how can you have expectations for the game?
If you ask me, I expected the desire and motivation that Barca showed. This always happens when you change coaches and win games that give confidence to the team. But from our side, we had to execute better on offense, try to be patient, move the ball. Whenever we executed well, we were ahead in the score in the first half. We stopped doing that, started rushing on offense, shooting without a pass and making mistakes, and it was difficult to compete at this level.”
Finally, our team’s coach was asked to comment on Barcelona’s performance in today’s game: “It’s not my job to evaluate Barcelona; that is Xavi’s responsibility. The only thing I can say is that they were better and they won the game. In professional basketball, everything is about winning. So, if you win games, you play well. Today they had a good game, with confidence, and they did whatever was necessary to win. I’m thinking about our own team, which needed to do many different things to win or even to compete in such a game. Barcelona has talent and is certainly experienced. Punter and Clyburn, the two targets in our defensive game plan, did whatever they wanted, so we had no chance of winning the game by allowing talented players to do whatever they want.”