Bartzokas: «Villeurbanne is a compact team»
Olympiacos is playing Villeurbanne for the 17th round of the EuroLeague and Giorgos Bartzokas with Frank Ntilikina talked about the game during the Media Day.
Our team's coach spoke first and commented on the things Olympiacos has to correct compared to the previous games: "We must simply win. Winning creates a good atmosphere and losing a bad one. As for the atmosphere within the team ranks, we are very upset but we also believe that we played very well against Valencia for 30 minutes.
We simply our moral collapsed following some big shots Valencia made, especially the couple ones in the transition by Thompson. We played under immense pressure after that and as you all got to witness, impacted our performance in the whole last quarter.
At the same time, we must acknowledge that Valencia played an amazing game. It's always about the opponent as well. However, there was great improvement in how we wanted to play for three quarters and we'll try to do the same as consistently as possible and for longer periods of time so that we gradually get back to our usual standards".
Then, Giorgos Bartzokas was questioned about Villeurbanne and their level, to which he replied: "They are a compact team, a team that plays hard; they have lost many of their games in the last 3 to 5 minutes. They fight everywhere, you saw that they beat Bayern yesterday, they don't quit on any game. I think it's redundant to repeat every time, each EuroLeague game is hard, each game hides pitfalls. You have to play well if you want to win, I think it's an obvious conclusion following last night's results also. There are no easy games and that's how we need to approach this".
He then got to talk about Monte Morris' debut, which will probably be in the game against Kolossos for the Stoiximan GBL: "His ergometrical results are good, of course he's not physically up to par to the rest of our players, but he's in much better shape than anyone would expect following a month with no games. That means he has adequately worked during his off time. Our goal is that he plays on Sunday against Kolossos and enter the rotation from there on".
Giorgos Bartzokas also got to talk about the slumps Olympiacos has been dealing with during games: "We are also trying to determine the reason for them. We could say that it has to do with poor choices; I think we have also missed too many shots towards the end of games, that could have produced a different outcome. Sometimes things don't work your way, primarily because the opponent is very good and it also has to do with who the opponent is and what shape they are in when you play them. For instance, Valencia is amazing right now, but that might not be the case in two months' time. No team can keep up like that during a long stretch of time. It also has to do with whether the opponent is motivated enough, if they are confident enough. The certain thing that right now, there are 20 very good teams, that want to get as far as possible.
I was watching Villeurbanne's game against Bayern that was executing free throws at the end, and I saw how anxious the fans were for the result. Villeurbanne is at the bottom of the rankings but the players were under so much stress to win. Every win is important with the EuroLeague, regardless of the team standings. The motivation for every team is huge. We have to manage our emotions; I think that's why we lost against Valencia. We were leading by 13, 10, 8 points and we did not finish the game, missing totally open shots. They immediately responded with a triple in the transition, then we were under pressure and we did not manage the game appropriately. Sometimes things are really simple as that".
On his part, Frank Ntilikina commented the following regarding the upcoming game: "It's always nice to play against people you know. It's going to be a big game tomorrow, especially for us who need to win at home.
We always talk in dressing rooms with the coaches to get better, despite having won or lost. Especially now that there is room for improvement and we must win"