Bartzokas: «Toughness and determination»
Toughness is going to be the key element in tomorrow’s game (10/02, 20.00 CET) against Anadolu Efes at the SEF for the 26th Euroleague round, according to the Olympiacos’ coach, Giorgos Bartzokas.
“Apart from what this particular game is going to take, assessing this time frame, I have the feeling that the excessive number of games and the wear and tear of the teams have brought quality down”, the ‘reds’ coach stressed, before continuing to say: “There are a lot of injuries, scores are quite low. This means that the quality at this particular moment is not as important, but rather determination and toughness to win the games you need are. The significance of the games right now is so crucial that fan pleasing basketball becomes secondary. What matters is to win and how tough you are, how good a defensive game you are going to be putting up. So, I believe that we are going to be doing this tomorrow, we are going to be really tough because Efes has a lot of offensive talent in every position. In the first round game we were tied up to the fourth quarter, however, a short period when they got to score a lot caused us a defeat of more than ten points. They are a team that if you allow them to play their game, they have enough talent to score a lot, that’s why we need to be really tough in this game”.
On whether the team has regained lost ground in terms of conditioning through practicing, he replied: “Don’t think that we have had the time to practice a lot. We have had a double game week, we went immediately after that to play against Aris and yesterday it was more of a recuperating practice. We are going to have one practice today for tomorrow’s game. The games are so many that you don’t have the chance to get in shape through practicing. That’s a fact for all teams. You mainly do it through the games. We have to understand what our job is, what role each one of us has to fulfill so as to be effective at the end”.