George Bartzokas: Olympiacos will be a difficult opponent for everyone

He welcomes Villerban for her 31st race (21/3, 21:15, Novasports 4) and he spoke about the must-win game with the French. Olympiacos coach George Bartzokas spoke more generally about the team’s progress in Euroleague and stressed that the Piraeus team will be a difficult opponent for everyone. Detailedly what the Greek technician stated: For the game with Efes: “I will look at it now, but I think as we were yesterday we will go. They had a better percentage than us in two and three points. You’d say we didn’t start with the right approach. Of course, Efes is a team that if she scores from the district, they also put open shots and difficultly marked shots, if she opens the score and gets confidence, she has regionals who can handle the situation very well. How we got into the game was wrong. In phases 50-50 they were tougher than us. They were more hungry. One explanation may be that we come from two months of consecutive victories in all the events and we weren’t with a knife in our teeth. And we have to restore this immediately for tomorrow, because every game is very critical.” For the game against Villerban: “Anyone waiting for a game that will be easy is wrong. He won Efes, won 20 points and yesterday was ten points in the fourth period and in the end lost to Partizan, who is a very good team. There is no indifferent match in Euroleague. It is a team that has athleticity, can open the score, has experience in the regionals, lately plays very well and we expect a difficult game. In no case is it procedural.” For Olympiacos’ course: “Group success is that Olympiacos claims to enter the playoffs again. The point is to be on the big dates of Greek and European basketball and for the last three years we have been. And the Final Four. I think that with the difficulties we have experienced this year, getting into the playoffs will be very important. From there on, I always look at my team and if we are healthy, as we will be spiritually ready, whether we have a seat advantage, or not, we will be a difficult opponent for everyone.” For defeating Ephes : “You always become arrogant when you win, it is in the nature of man. A loss gives, especially to coaches, the ability to make a restart on the team. Get back to the basics and the very important things that make you a winner. But it happens to all European groups. You see that, too, there is no European group that does not lose. Real had a hard time with Alba yesterday. There is no game that is easy. Zalgiris easily won Virtus. I mean, every game is war, every game has its difficulty. We saw the roster and the quality of Efes, a team that will hardly succeed in playing in and we all understand how competitive this league is.”