Bartzokas: «This was a very important win»
After the win against Baskonia, coach Georgios Bartzokas, said:
“This was a very important victory for our team, during a time that as you know, we have had four back to back defeats preceding. We have had a difficult schedule and the momentum had been very ‘tough’, since, as I have said, we have had 13 Covid cases during the last 25 days. This has had a grave impact on our game, our physical conditioning, our confidence. We have enough players that seem to be in questionable shape, that’s why each game, each practice, allows us to regain the good competition level we had achieved in the first round. As I had said before the game, as the season moves forward, each win is crucial, each game is very significant, that’s why this road win is really important. Congratulations to Baskonia and to my friend Neven Spahija. I wish them all the best in their upcoming games”.
Asked about the key that gave his team the win in the last minutes of the game, he replied: “We stole the ball 13 times and most of the time in crucial parts of the game, which allowed us to transition. We certainly had to execute our defensive plan through pressure on the ball. We had to force Baskonia’s facilitators to turn the ball over many times. I think that the decisive part of the game was when we stole the ball about 3 or 4 times in a row together with two crucial offensive rebounds Fall got, which gave us secondary offenses. We scored on both occasions and this was really important”.
Questioned about managing his team after a very tiring game in Madrid, he said: “What I have to say is that the game in Madrid was one of high intensity and physicality. As you have probably saw, the result was decided by some minor details. Real put a lot of pressure in order to get back in the game and our point guards had practically the task of managing this hard game. We had one day less compared to Baskonia to prepare for tonight’s game. I think we need to ‘open’ up our bench a little more, our rotation that is, despite that Larentzakis and Acy hadn’t been with us, while also Shaquielle McKissic suffers from gastroenteritis and it was very difficult for him to play. He only played for 6-7 minutes, because it was simply impossible for him to play longer. So, my biggest concern had been to make substitutions, because I came to realize that my players lacked energy, so as to allow them to catch their breaths and come back into the game subsequently. That’s why I put Dorsey in 7-8 minutes before the end of the game and that’s why Sloukas did not play in the last three minutes, because he had been really tired. For us, it was really important to have stability with our defense”.