Bartzokas: «We must forget about the semi-final»
Giorgos Bartzokas stressed the importance of his team forgetting about the semi-final against Panathinaikos and present themselves serious and focused in the final game against Peristeri.
“Congratulations to our team. We want to thank our fans for the support. These games are demanding and are always difficult in terms of approaching them. You don’t have much time to prepare. We have had the game against Aris and then we got one meeting at noon to deal with the game. We have had the stress of being the favorites, with the ‘must win’ on our shoulders and that’s why we were sloppy and hasty in the fist half. We lacked the patience to execute our plan. Whenever we did that, we were finding open shots, but we were missing them too and that’s why we became more hesitant and less efficient in defense. During the break, we said that we had to execute our plan in the offence and pass the ball where the weak defender for Panathinaikos would be. That’s how we created many open spots which went in in the second half. Also, our defense improved a lot and we ran a big streak with almost 20 points, which, if I’m not mistaken, Panathinaikos had no answer for. We appreciate tonight’s win a lot. Panathinaikos is always a big opponent and they are always a tough team to play against. We need to forget about this game, no matter how emotionally extreme it might have been. Both before and during that game, it’s hard to manage it. We have to be as serious as we have been throughout the season and tomorrow be ready to play the final”.
On his part, Sasha Vezenkov pointed out: “It was a tough game. A must win for qualification. In the first half we did not play as should have, especially in defense. We received forty points, that are too many for our team. However, we made a very strong start into the third quarter, ran a big streak, upped our offensive game where we had appeared to be kind of stuck and we are very happy to have qualified for the final. We have one more game, against a very good team. We need to rest, focus and go to compete for the title”.