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Bartzokas: «It was a very important win» (vid)

The coach of Olympiacos, Giorgos Bartzokas, emphasized the importance of the victory over Alba Berlin, as well as the imperative need for his players to solely focus on the game against Fenerbahce (28/10, 20.00).

“It was an important win against a very good team. Congratulations to our players, as well as to our fans who supported us tonight. We are at the end of October, the month with the most games in all the season, so every game is very important and every win is very important. That’s why we need to stay focused only on the game ahead of us. Just like for all the teams, the game against Fenerbahce is the fourth game for us in a week and as you can understand, if we take in traveling, the importance of each game and their difficulty, there’s fatigue. Congratulations to Alba for their performance. We now need to focus on the next game”.

Asked about which part of the ‘reds’ game he would like to see improved during the game against the Turkish team, he replied: “Right now there are a lot of things that are not consistent. Our team work, our defense, weren’t up to standards in this game. We had focused on how to stop the movement of the ball so that Sikma would not be passing and he had 8 assists in the first half. I understand the players. The games are too many. The focus required is for top level athletes and some of them are still ‘growing’ as players through game time and practices. We need to improve on all aspects of our game and that’s what I was saying even when we won with big margins. We also need to control our feelings, disappointment, excitement… We need to become more cynical”.

On his part, the coach of Alba Berlin, Israel Gonzalez, pointed out: “Congratulations to Olympiacos. We did not make a good start in the game. We were bad in the back court. We also did not make a good start offensively as well. We went to one on one situations, shot a lot in front of our opponents without moving the ball, resulting in the impediment of our effort. We played much better defense in the second half and were much more aggressive in the offense and got to return in the game. But we still did not succeed in getting the win. I’m happy with the effort of my players”.