"We gave up in the last quarter"
Olympiacos returned from Vitoria and immediately went to work, since tomorrow (05/03, 20.00 CET), will be hosting Crvena Zvezda at the SEF for the 28th round of the Euroleague.
Nevertheless, the main focus of the statements Giorgos Bartzokas got to make was not the upcoming game against the Serbian team, but rather the painful road loss to Baskonia. “When you say that it was many things that went wrong when you are talking about a shipwreck like that of the last quarter. However, I don’t see the whole game as a wreck. It was purely giving up during the last fifteen minutes. I remind everyone that we were only trailing by six in the third quarter. However, what happened at the end was just quitting. I always try to be realist. In Greece, we always have to balance logic and emotions. In sports, emotions always come first, because sports instigate great joy or great sorrow. I for one, need to be a pragmatist and see things the way they actually are. Right now, our team is coming from a losing streak of seven games. In some of these seven games we played well, there have three games we lost in the last possession, I’m talking about the games against CSKA, Zalgiris and Barcelona. The team suffered a terrible psychological toll, the way these losses came to be. At the same time, missing important players at a crucial point in the season, in January, when we were playing more games due to the coronavirus, has been a factor. We played without Vezenkov against Panathinaikos and Barcelona, without Martin that has undergone a surgery, without Papanikolaou for all that time… All of that had a cumulative effect so as the team to lose confidence and present a terrible image last night. A wreck in the last fifteen minutes, when everyone tried to play as if we were not a team”.
Asked about what the reason for the dead defensive periods in Olympiacos’ game, he said: “You cannot give any one answer on that. The line ups can be in the hundreds, the combination of players. There are games when we are solid and want to win through the team and there are other times, and take note, I’m not saying that as an ego issue, some players want to come forward and win the game with their personality. At this moment, if you don’t rely on team game and if you are not really specific with some of the things you are doing, the Euroleague will point that out for you in the worst manner possible. And this does not only happen with us. Teams that are now among the top 8, they have lost many games with huge margins. Or let me put it another way, the team that has played the most derbies in the last possessions is CSKA, based on the numbers. That means that to be successful or a failure, is often really close. However, that’s where we fell short, we made turnovers at the end in many crucial games, which then got to burden the team’s psychology”.
He finished saying: “We have had a very tough and hard meeting with the players, where we got to speak many truths. I, as a coach, owe my support to the roster that I have chosen anyway. And I’m going to be doing that till the end of the season. From there on though, the fact that I’m hard in the locker room and speak truth to my players is something that I have the obligation to do”.
«We want to finish the season strong»
Kostas Koufos, who got to debut wearing the reds’ jersey against Baskonia, pointed out: “We made a strong beginning. I can’t find excuses for myself. It was a hard loss. However, we are professionals, we are going to keep on practicing, we have one more game tomorrow and we’ll try to finish the season the strongest we can. Euroleague is a very good league for sure. We have many talented players on our team, we need to go on and stay focused. We need to take it one day at a time and finish the season as strong as possible”.
About the game against the Serbs, the pointed out: “Crvena Zvezda is a very aggressive team. We need to stay focused and finish our plays. We need to be strong with our defense and ‘feed’ our offense through it. The most important things is to find motivation through practice. We need to play hard and finish the season strong”. Finally, asked if he feels ready to help Olympiacos, he replied: “I can’t be looking for excuses. Personally, the more time I get, the better I will be trying to be. Obviously, there’s always room for improvement. I will move forward and give my best in every game”.
* Giorgos Printezis, who had not played in the game against Baskonia due to lower back pain muscle spasm, practiced today (04/03) and it’s possible that he will be playing tomorrow.