Bartzokas: «We lost our heads»

The catastrophic performance in the fourth quarter was the reason for the loss to Anadolu Efes according to the Olympiacos’ coach, Giorgos Bartzokas, who stressed the need for his players to solely train their focus on the Friday game (19/11) against Maccabi.

“Congratulations to Efes for the win. They remained consistent for forty minutes, the total opposite of what we did. We controlled the game for thirty minutes, followed our plan and that’s why the score was tied. However, the fourth quarter was catastrophic for us. We stopped playing on both ends of the floor. We looked as if we were disappointed and stopped playing as a team on both defense and offense. That’s the reason we lost. Our next game is on Friday and that’s what we need to be thinking about now. It’s challenge. It’s going to be hard against Maccabi and that’s why we need to forget about tonight’s game”.

Asked about Tyler Dorsey’s performance, he replied: “I don’t criticize my players when they play bad and I don’t give them credit as individuals when they play well. It’s a job, we are professionals and what we have to say we say in the locker rooms. It was definitely a bad night for Tyler, but he has had many good nights up to now”.

Finally, on whether the switches in defense with Mustapha Fall coming on Micic and Larkin was something he had planned for or happened due to how the game was evolving, he said: “Defense with switching is part of our defensive strategy. Sometimes we use it, others not. But, Efes has many good facilitators in the perimeter and whoever starts passing makes it very hard for the defense to adjust. I think that our defense had been efficient for thirty minutes. It wasn’t in the fourth quarter. So, just like I said before, we lost our heads. Fall is very efficient in defending the perimeter. He wasn’t as much tonight, but for thirty minutes, we stayed true to our plan on both ends of the floor”.