Bartzokas: “A win is a qualifying step”

Olympiacos is playing against Khimki in Moscow on Friday and Giorgos Bartzokas and Kostas Papanikolaou talk about the game against the Russian team.

GIORGOS BARTZOKAS: “We are playing in a very tough home court against a team that almost never loses there. We have to play a very good game if we wish for a victorious result. I don’t agree that we are racing against Khimki to make the top four teams. It’s the last game of the first round of the Euroleague and that’s the only way to look at it, it’s still very early to talk about things like that, being only with first round. No game yet is that decisive. It’s tough to win there, but should we make, we will have taken a huge step towards qualification. About the Greek Cup final, it was something far beyond sporting realm, something different to sports and basketball and everyone that had been there is aware of it. We need to forget about it, it’s not easy, but we should leave this behind us. About Khimki now, we have practiced and talked about the game for two days now, we still have one more practice there to analyze our game plan. Planinic is a nodal player for Khimki and in games like that the absence of Mantzaris becomes even more obvious, since he had been the one to always undertake that role. Sloukas, Law and Katsivelis can pull through though. But it’s going to take team work to stop a player like that. He sets the game for everyone else and for me he’s the most important player of Khimki. It’s very difficult to find a guard at this time in the season. We have down to 4-5 cases so we are going to proceed within the next days since our deadline is expiring”.

KOSTAS PAPANIKOLAOU: “It’s a tough game, a game with many particularities. It’s going to be held early in the afternoon and with all the transportations and the traffic in the streets, we are going to have to be absolutely focused and ready. Khimki is a team that plays organized basketball, a coach’s team I would say. On our part, we should play our game and above all, play good defense. Khimki moves the ball well in offense so we need to stay focused and through defense, manage to run the fast-breaks. About the Greek Cup Final, the sooner we leave it behind us, the better. It has been a shameful day for Greek basketball and I think we all agree on that. Our job is to play basketball and with what has happened on Sunday, we didn’t make it. We have to get better psychologically and move forward, deleting this game from our hard drives. We want to win in Moscow and qualify for the Euroleague play-offs. Every game is important and crucial to us. I wish, just like in Tel-Aviv to use the pressure in our favor and win”.

* Dimitris Mavroeidis and Giorgos Georgakis did not travel to Moscow.