Bartzokas: «We should stay focused on our plan»
Aiming to get his 12th win that will be keeping him within the top three teams of the ranking, Olympiacos will be facing Panathinaikos tomorrow (23/12, 20.00 CET) for the 17th round of the Euroleague.
“We are trying to deal with it as a game scheduled within the holiday season that gives two points for the win and one for a loss. That’s our approach”, the ‘reds’ coach, Giorgos Bartzokas stressed and went on saying: “Panathinaikos is a team that has potential and weaknesses, however, we are going to try and play our game”.
On whether the loss to Panathinaikos for the Greek League became a study issue for him and his associates, he replied: “Of course, but not only that. We have been also studying the games Panathinaikos had played recently and of course our own games as well. We need to lean on what we have been doing well and have given us these wins for the Euroleauge. We have to stick to our plan and not get carried away by emotions that are often extreme in Panathinaikos’ home court. It’s a tough court, the fans participate actively and as you realize, they are going to be even more animated with us. So, we have to play our game and stick to our plan”.
Asked about the keys for tomorrow’s game, he replied: “Panathinaikos has been playing zone… They had played that even before our game, but they having using zone quite a lot as their main defensive game, which can be applied two and three times within the game. We need to be prepared for that. The rest are not easy to analyze on camera, however, when Nedovic scores a lot, as well as Macon, Panathinaikos sends the score high. We have to defend better on Nedovic than what we did the first time and of course on our part, we need to have facilitation and lean on the things we normally do, good defense, many players participating in scoring. We need to play the way we know …”
Finally, on whether Olympiacos preparing for the game is impacted by the fact that Panathinaikos has had Covid cases within his roster, he stressed: “We try not to get influenced, however, we are troubled by what’s going on with basketball on a global scale. You know what’s been happening with the NBA, it’s gradually coming to Europe, we have the examples of Milan and Madrid. Now Panathinaikos has been faced with cases. We are worried, because we all want to play basketball and only that, without being impacted by Covid, but it’s not something that’s removed from the society. It’s a reality around us and of course we are troubled by it. However, we are going to try and stay focused on basketball”.