Bartzokas: «We weren’t focused»

The coach of Olympiacos, Giorgos Bartzokas, determined that the victory against PAOK came thanks to solid defending and good ball movement, but he still had complaints from his players…

“Congratulations to our team. We were quite serious in the second half, especially defense wise. When we moved the ball, dishing 25 assists, we got the win. PAOK is a team I appreciate and they played very well tonight, especially in the first half. They shot with very high percentages in twos, 75%, which is a product of both their talent but also of the lack of concentration we showed, normally or not I don’t know, I would say not normally. It took a lot of effort defense wise in the second half to get the victory. There are no games you can appear relaxed with the Greek League and not get in danger. We have to remain focused and at the same time we need to rotate with all our players. Our schedule includes important games on Wednesday, Friday and Monday and sharing minutes had been our goal”.

On his part, PAOK’s coach, Aris Lykogiannis, pointed out: “Congratulations to Olympiacos. I wish them all the best with their next games both in Greece and in Europe. The game tonight was quite interesting and a main reason had been our good performance for 35 minutes. We stayed true to our plan, we remained competitive enough and one thing that bothers me a lot is the final difference of 18 points, because it doesn’t reflect how the game really evolved”.