Bartzokas: «We must prepare for the upcoming battles»

Olympiacos is returning with a tied series from Barcelona and according to our team's coach, Giorgos Bartzokas, the games in Piraues are going to be real battles.

"I would like to congratulate Barcelona, they deserved to win. They played with the will to win. For a second game, we committed too many turnovers in the critical moments, when we came back and got ahead in the score, we thought we could have made some better choices, taken some better decisions, so that we would put pressure on the opponent. However, Barcelona immediately got to score and came back to the game. In the 4th quarter we made three very critical mistakes due to miscommunication with our defense, that allowed our opponent to make open shots, that practically determined the result. The series is now tied 1-1 and we are now going to our gym for two more games. I think the games are going to be like tonight's, real battles. Let's prepare for that." 

Asked what changed compared to the first quarter-final, he replied: "Barcelona is a great team, it has players with personality, they have the support of the Palau. We had to begin much better. We allowed them 3 or 4 buckets in the beginning. All of these games, of that kind, the toughness, the contact, the aggressiveness are very important games. It had to do with Barcelona's desire to win. We might have thought that by winning in the first game we had finished with our mission here. I don't want to believe that though. Each games is a different story". 

Finally, about Kostas Papanikolaou, he said: "I think that we are going to have Papanikolaou with us. Today he practiced at the SEF, we have 2 or 3 practices before the game so he can prepare. He's weak due to the high temperature he had, but I hope he will help us".