Bartzokas: «We should avoid falling into a trap»
After two huge road victories against Barcelona and Crvena Zvezda, Olympiacos is getting ready for yet another double game week. The ‘reds’ shall be hosting Valencia at the SEF tomorrow (16/12, 20.30 CET), fort the 14th round of the Euroleague.
“It’s always that wins bring confidence and trust into the work we’ve doing and amongst ourselves…” our team’s coach, Giorgos Bartzokas, commented. “That is trust among players, trust among players and coaches, trust among coaches and players. They always create a good atmosphere. On the other hand, they can be a trap, because complacency can be a tremendous problem with the Euroleague. You can underestimate no team, they are all very tough and the results point to that direction. In general, we think we are on the right direction, thankfully, we now have our full roster at practice and we played with no absentees during the past two games. If we play with a full roster, we are a good team”.
About Valencia, he pointed out: “They are a team with great offensive talent, it’s only obvious. They rank second in scoring with the Euroleague, they enjoy facilitation from all their players, they have execution both facing and with back to basket, Tobey and Dubljevic that play the center position, also have very good perimeter percentages. They are a very particular team and they pose a lot of riddles and problems for their opponents to solve, that’s also why they’ve been doing so well. They have a core of players that have been playing together for years, they are very experienced plus they’ve been adding players with Euroleague experience. They are tough to bring down, especially on the road, where, like their coach has said, they’ve been playing even better. We shall need to play a game not only relying on tactics, but also on physicality. We need to play with intensity, we need to play a physical game, if we want to win”.
Asked about the empty gym stands and whether this has an impact on the players, he replied: “We are not used to going to a gym and playing without fans. Gradually, the reality of a game’s importance diminishes when you are not in a full gym. When on the road,, we are all together, we travel, we have a team schedule that includes everyone. I think that we are more focused on the road, compared to home games and I believe this is the case with all the teams. The results attest to that. It’s always that the fans in your gym keep you vigilant. We have a good road record, four wins in six games. What we are looking for is consistency wherever we get to play. It’s helpful that we are all together by now, we have many solutions and the ability to play with varying line ups. When we stabilize our performance at a high level, we are going to be really dangerous”.
As for Aleksej Pokusevki and his very good performance during his debut with the Thunder, he said: “I only watched the highlights. He’s a player one enjoys watching him play. He has an innate basketball talent, he’s 2.14m, and he can dribble the ball. For anyone loving basketball, it’s a very pleasant experience watching Pokusevski playing. Everyone here loves him, even I, that haven’t had the time to live close to him a lot. Everyone that has worked with him during previous seasons really adore him. They wake up in the morning to check how he did, except for constantly remaining in touch with him. We are really happy for how he has evolved”.
Finally, asked whether the 9-0 record Olympiacos has had against Valencia is something that he and his players think about, he said: “I hadn’t known about that and I don’t think that anyone on the team thinks that way. We have had 2 or 3 meetings and no one seems relaxed and complacent watching how Valencia has been performing on the court”.
«We should ‘lock up’ their offensive assets»
Livio Jean-Charles said about the game: “It’s going to be a very hard and difficult game. They have many offensive weapons and they have been playing very well this season. The key is going to be defense, like in most games anyway. We are going to have to ‘lock up’ some really good players like Prepelic and Dubljevic”.
On how he and his team mates have been dealing with the two big road wins that preceded, as well as with the new double games week that follows, he said: “The team optic is to move forward one game at a team. We don’t preoccupy ourselves with what happened in the past or what is going to happen in the future. We are not thinking about what is going to happen against Real Madrid or how we beat Barcelona. We are simply focusing at the game before us”.