«We should react»
KestutisKemzura, Kostas Papanikolaou and GiorgosPrintezis talked about the road game against Baskonia (25/10, 21:00 CET), for the 4thday of the Euroleague and agreed that the Piraeus team should be seen reacting.
ThecoachofOlympiacos, ΚestutisKemzura, stated that “Vitoria is always one of the most difficult places to play. They have a tough home court, a balanced team and they play up tempo in front of their audience. Weshouldremainfocusedandcontrolthetempo. Transitiondefensewillbeoneofthekeysofthegame. PlayerslikeVildozaandHenryarethe “engines” of this team, they create, run the team in the fast break and control the rhythm of the game. Shengelia is the main scorer of this team and we need to stop him, they have good shooters like Janning, Stauskas and Shields who is their second top scorer, so we need to stop these guys”, the Lithuanian coach stated at first to continue saying that “they also have good big guys, that’s why I’m saying they have a balanced team. We need to avoid mistakes because they are going to be punishing us in every chance they get».
Baskonia has played three road games at the beginning of the Euroleague and will be now playing its first home game for the season, which the Lithuanian coach commented on following a relevant question. “They play better at home, in an amazingly tough home court. However, if you want to be at top level, qualify for the TOP-8, you need to also win road games, in tough courts like that in Vitoria”.
Compared to the game against Zenit, Olympiacosshould be chaning things according to the 48-year old coach. “We should be learning from our mistakes, move the ball better and play better defense. And of course, make our open shots when the opportunity arises”.
“When a game is over, regardless of the result, you always examine what worked and what didn’t, so that you know what it is you need to correct and what to keep. There have been many parts in our game against Zenit when we have had issues and have tried to work on our mistakes this past week. Always, following a loss, you need to react and return to the game in a forceful fashion and get a big win, hence deleting a bad loss”, Kostas Papanikolaou’ initial statement was.
As for the game against the Basques, the Greek forward said that we ‘play in tough home court, we have to admit that. Baskonia’s court is rough, but we are going there to try to win, just like we do at every game, to fight for the best possible outcome”.
As for the goal he and his team mates share, ‘Pap’ was crystal clear: “Our goal is to remain focused to what we want to do, focused on the plan, to bring what the coach wants on the floor and for every one of us to bring out energy and a strong personality. When Olympiacos plays true to his DNA, beautiful things happen and I think that such a performance can grant us the win”