Bartzokas: «Please, don't underestimate any win»
Giorgos Bartzokas congratulated the fans and his teams for the win over Crvena Zvezda, while he made a special mention of captain Kostas Papanikolaou, who sacrificed for the team.
"Congratulations to the playes and the fans. It was an amazing atmosphere, like always. We finished the double game week with two wins. And I would like to say something, please, don't underestimate any win. We lost to Baskonia here, everyone was saying that we should not have lost to that team and you saw that then they went and beat Barcelona with a 30p. margin. We beat Efes here, that win was underplayed and then Efes went on to beat in Monaco. Evan with the game against Maccabi, when we were winning by 15 points in the first half, and then we lost Goss and Peters still early into the game, we managed to win and then we were reading comments of 'they should have played better' kind. I don't know what it is exactly that some people expect from us. This is the Euroleague, a very tough competition and everyone who knows basketball can easily understand that. You saw how strong a team Crvena Zvezda is".
And he added: "We were winning with 15-16 point difference, we should have won easily, but, we made some bad decisions, resulting in them scoring 10 points in three plays. We have to appreciate each and every one of the wins in this tournament, especially now that we are missing so many players. I want to congratulate Giannis Sfairopoulos, I believe they have their best roster up to this point and are strong contenders for the play-offs".
He finally, gave apotheosis to Kostas Papanikolaou, stressing that... "I want to thank Kostas Papanikolaou, because he played a fantastic game, despite having earlier gotten an injection for his lower back pain. He was in pain and his participation tonight had been really doubtful. He gave it all and he was critical for us getting this win. I usually don't talk about individual performances, but this is extra. He sacrificed for the team".
On his part, the coach of Crvena Zvezda, Giannis Sfairopoulos, stressed that: "I think that we fought a good fight tonight against a good team, especially at home. We controlled the tempo in the first half, and if not for the last 3-4 minutes in the first half, our defense was really good. We discussed with our players during the break, we said that we had to continue playing the same defense but we should be playing faster in offence".
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