"Consistency, no turnovers and rebounding"
Olympiacos flew today (26/12) to Barcelona and tomorrow (27/12, 21.00 CET) will be playing against Barca for the 16th day of the Euroleague.
Nikola Milutinov will not be playing tomorrow due to right knee osteochondritis.
“Barcelona is one of the most quality teams with the Euroleague”, the ‘reds’ coach, Kestutis Kemzura pointed out. “They have talent, athleticism, they play defense. A very difficult game. We’ll have to play consistently on both ends of the floor, take the rebounds and make as few turnovers as possible”.
Talking about the absence of the Serbian center, the said: “Milutinov’s absence is important to us, since he’s a key part of our t5eam. However, Rubit and Reed can make up for him”.
Asked whether the no 1 target of the ‘red’ defense is going to be Mirotic, he replied: “It’s not just Mirotic. Each Barcelona player is dangerous. We definitely have to contain his game, but he’s not alone”.
On his part, Brandon Paul stressed: “They are a good team and they play good basketball right now. We are going there having prepared well. We need to fight and keep in mind how we are going to win. We need to be competitive in every game and we need to find a way to cope with their many ‘weapons’. Barcelona has a lot of players, but we also have talented players”.
About Milutinov’s absence, the American forward pointed out: “Milutinov is not easy to replace, but there are players who are eager to come out on the floor and fight”.