A loss to Valencia at the home
Olympiacos’ return to the SEF was not accompanied by a win. The ‘reds’ lost to Valencia 85-96, for the 14th round of the Euroleague, in a game when Giorgos Bartzokas was missing Kostas Papanikolaou (wry neck), while also got to ‘lose’ Giorgos Printezis to injury at 8’.
Relying on their good perimeter percentages, but also taking advantage of the our teams defensive deficiencies, the Spaniards ‘built’ an early difference of +10 (9-19) at 8’ At that point, Giorgos Printezis felt a lower back spasm, immediately left for the locker rooms and was never able to come back to the game at a later stage.
Valencia increased the difference even further (13p., 22-35) at 12’, however, Olympiacos reacted… With Vassilis Spanoulis, Sasha Vezenkov and Shaquielle McKissic succeeded to close in at 5p. (32-37 at 15’). However, turnovers, missed rebounds and subpar defensive operation, allowed the Spanish team to reply with a 6-0 streak (32-43 at 17’). The guests – who even got to lead by +14 (36-50) – maintained complete control and closed the first half leading 52-39.
The ‘reds’ began the 3rd quarter with a mini 5-0 streak (44-52), however, Valencia’s big players, when not wrecking havoc in the ‘reds’ low post, they would be shooting (Dubljevic) from the perimeter, skyrocketing the margin to +16 (54-71). With ‘small ball’, Giorgos Bartzokas tried to reverse the situation, Olympiacos closed in at 8p. (74-82 at 35’), however, Valencia ‘struck’ in the paint, maintained control and got the win.
The quarters: 16-25, 39-52, 65-76, 85-96.
"Our attitude was wrong"
The coach of Olympiacos, Giorgos Bartzokas, pointed out: “Congratulations to Valencia, they played a great game. They deserved 100% to win. On the contrary, we deserved nothing better. We had a completely wrong attitude in the first half and I’m really greatly disappointed by it. It’s not the first time we come from an important road victory and start the game with different players, but with the same attitude. We weren’t willing to come to contact with anyone. We had said that we needed to play with physicality, that we needed to be aggressive and the only team that played a physical game, was Valencia. My job is not to create the team’s capabilities. They are there. It’s obvious that we played a good game against Barcelona. But the team’s attitude, the fighting spirit, what we need to be doing to win the game, these are my responsibility. I don’t know how long it’s going to take and who are the players I can rely on, but I will be finding that out sooner or later”.
He went on to say: “They are a team that posts up a lot, they get facilitation from all their players, their big players can shoot well, they are a team with excellent talent. That’s why they rank first with assists. So, if you try to play the game with one possession for us, one for you, without imposing some contact rules in your own gym, it’s obvious that you are allowing your opponent to play their game. And that’s what happened. When they get to score 50 points by half-time, you deserve nothing more. In this game, when a team has all its players participating, either facilitating or scoring as easily as in the first half, then, even you turn the game around, just like we did, when at some point we closed in, they are going to have an advantage because everyone has already built confidence. For me, you set the tone of the game with the first contact. We reacted at every contact, but were not pro-active at all. We lacked in every play that contact, strength and fighting spirit were called for. That’s why I’m saying we did not deserve to win. Valencia missed 11 shots in the first half and got 7 or 8 offensive rebounds out of these plays. If you don’t go after the ball, it means you have the wrong attitude towards the game. It’s pressure, because suddenly the expectations have risen? I don’t know. However, our mentality should be completely different, especially when we play in a huge ‘cold’ gym’.
Valencia’s coach, Jaume Ponsarnau, commented: “Both teams share the same philosophy and the same way of thinking. We want to control the tempo, we want to control the game through our defense. I think that in the beginning of the game, with our defense and rebounding, we got to control their tempo, stop their team game and impose our rhythm. Of course, Printezis’ getting injured during the game played a role. I think we played one of our most consistent games. In the second half, Olympiacos improved defensive aggressiveness, but we never lost control at any point of the game”