Sfairopoulos: «We have to play for 40 minutes»
Olympiacos will be hosted by Nizhny (17.30 CET), for the last day of the Euroleague TOP-16 first round, and our team's coach, Giannis Sfairopoulos explains how the 'reds' are going to win in Novgorod.
"Nizhny is in especially good shape lately and they have been playing well, mainly in front of their fans. They are a team that play at high note in offense, that's why we need to remain focused with our defense and the plan we have worked on so as to eliminate their assets", the Greek coach said in the beginning and then stressed that "They play with tall and short rotations, they make a lot of switches in defense and we need to read all of these, make the right decisions and find the proper shots. We are expecting a tough game, we are certain we are going to face a fighting team and we need to play for 40 minutes. Rochestie is their team's locomotive, but they have another 6-7 players that play great, they support one another's game and have a great chemistry".
In regard to Brent Petway's condition, the coach of the Piraeus team said that "he practiced yesterday and today, he's better, we'll see how he's going to be during tomorrow's practice in Russia, we wait and see".
On his part, Tremmell Darden said that "we are going to a country with a lot of cold, conditions are always special in these kind of games, I know that since I have played in Lithuania, but all these will not affect us. They are an excellent team, it's not only Parakhouski, Antonov, Kinsey and Rochestie, they have other players as well. We'll need to be especially careful in defense, rebounding and controlling the rhythm. We need to play aggressive defense to reach victory".