Bartzokas: «One of the most important wins»

The ‘red & whites’ coach, Giorgos Bartzokas, stressed the importance of the win over Virtus, that came under special circumstances for Olympiacos.

“It was a fantastic game, with great intensity. Both teams put up a real fight. Especially for us, the circumstances had been hard because Kostas Sloukas, who is our facilitator, did not play the game, while Sasha Vezenkov was ill and was not going to be playing. But he played at the end, and he played a lot. I think that this win is one of the most important in the season. Mainly because I have a lot of respect for coach Scariolo and Virtus. They fight for every possession and they fight to the end. They were trailing by ten and returned. Of course, we also did a lot of things wrong in the last minutes. We missed free throws with Larentzakis, we missed lay-ups before, we gave Teodosic three free-throws, we received a bucket and one, while we were leading by five. Nevertheless, we succeeded in getting the victory, which like I said before, is very important. Good luck to Virtus”.  

Asked about Sasha Vezenkov, who played despite being ill and what this means for Olympiacos, he replied: “Everyone knows that it means a lot. We missed him due to injury in the game against Panathinaikos, which we won, but he returned. He hadn’t been in great shape following his injury, but he’s getting better with every passing game. He’s certainly a very important player. But I don’t want to talk about anyone individual player. McKissic was also fantastic and everyone else also… If you watched the game, you would have seen that Sasha was a little tired and made a foul because it was obvious that he was really exhausted at that moment and wasn’t thinking straight. But everyone knows how important Sasha is”.