Bartzokas: "We need to play aggressively to win"
Olympiacos is hosting Virtus tomorrow (09/12, 20.00 CET), aiming to his 8th win for the Euroleague.
"I wouldn't want to talk about the game against Panathinaikos", the 'red & whites' coach, Giorgos Bartzokas said and explained why: "It always leaves an impression due to its significance and the intensity it entails. I don't agree with the discussion of whether Olympiacos played a good game or not. Obviously, what counts is to win the games. I explained that the other night also, you can't always be winning by 20 or 30 points. They were a tough team and we played a good game in defense to win. For the game against Virtus, I wouldn't like to make the usual trivial comments about it being a hard game. It's a fact that it is one. If you take a look at the players that Virtus has in its roster for tomorrow's game, you will understand the size and the quality of the team. They have quality and experience not only with their roster, but also in their bench. So, it's going to be a very difficult game, just like we all expect it to be and we need to be very good in important aspects of the game to win".
He said about the Italian team: "They have talent in every position. They have two centers, Jaiteh and Bako, that are very good with pick n' cut, they have great quality at 4 with Mickey and Shengelia who's returning. They have athletic guards like Cordinier and Weems... And of course, four guards that have facilitation and score. For instance, look at Teodosic, that is also playing tomorrow, he has 15 minutes, 12 poitns and 5 assists per game. They are a team with very good post up, that gets a lot of scoring inside the post as well as facilitation, with great experience, Hackett is a very good player, as well as Lundberg... We'll have to play good personal defense, and also play good team defense, control the rebounds and if we take for granted that both teams are going to be playing with their talent, then what happened against Real in Madrid is going to happen, where it was Virtus that won. We need to play aggressively to win".