Sfairopoulos: "Soul beats fatigue"
Giannis Sfairopoulos thinks that Olympiacos should play with heart and soul to win zalgiris tomorrow (26/04, 19.00 CET) and tie the series to 2-2 for the Euroleague playoffs.
“We need to correct our mistakes. First of all, we need to be more determined, more aggressive in the game, with much more energy and passion”, the ‘reds’ coach stressed and continued: “We should go for contact. Tactically wise, we need to ‘read’ the game better and not make mistakes due to confusion that resulted in receiving too many points in the post without any one player on the opponent”.
Asked on whether there are any energy reserves, he stressed: “I think that yes, because we hadn’t had a player that played too much last night and because soul is what counts in game like that. When the soul is strong, it beats fatigue”.
About his feel on the reaction of his players following the defeat in the third game, he said that… “I think we are going to react, because the image we projected does not do us justice. It wasn’t what we showed throughout the season. This is mainly due to the fact that the team has been dealing with injuries that have damaged the harmony, the cohesion and the roles within the team. Where we are right now, however, there are no excuses and we are going in strong to fight for this game”.
On what it is Olympiacos should be doing to win, he commented: “We need to be doing simple things correctly, because simple things cost us the game last night. This happened due to the lack of proper concentration and misreading the game. We definitely need all our players to be ready to fight, to be focused and do what they need to be doing. You cannot be playing games like these, if you don’t have all your players ready to play”.
Talking about the injured players, he said: “Today some of them are going to be resting at practice, or just participating in a more lax way. We’ll know something by tomorrow. We’ll see what we can do at last minute, just like yesterday”.
Asked on whether it was the right thing to do to use injured players, he replied: “You all were writing hymns and triumphant stories after the second game, when players got to play after getting injections and practically sacrificing themselves. You were all for them playing then. Now you ask me if it’s the right thing to do for the injured players to be playing. Whoever needs to be playing, will be playing”.
"Like a fist..."
Kostas Papanikolaou commented… “We are talking about a final. Just wondering if there is will, energy or aspirations, is the wrong way to approach preparing for this game. We are all experienced, we have all played big games and we need to know that we need to be all together at this point and all together, like a fist, fight the strongest we can. We have to get back to our standards, to what has brought us so far into the season, so as to challenge all our options”.
Experience is an asset, but it’s not enough… “Having found ourselves in this position before does not mean we can compare situations equally. Of course experience is an asset, but we all need to be doing our jobs the best we can. We don’t need to play the perfect game, nor to find heroes, or anything like that… We need to stand by our standards just like we have done throughout the season and fight to get what we need”
Finally, asked what is it that Olympiacos can be changing in terms of tactics, he replied: “I think that the greatest element in a series is when you are trailing to show you will on the floor. There are certainly some tactical pieces that are very important, however, this team has proved in the past that had enough will to make big plays on the floor and play great defense enough to dismantle any kind of tactics and achieve everything on the floor. Coaches are best to analyzing this part. We, as players, need to show how far we want this series to go and try to secure one more game to fight for our chances to go to the final four”.