Bartzokas: «We have to play above our standards»
Olympiacos departed for Istanbul without Livio Jean-Charles (he suffered a left hemithorax injury) where he will be playing against Anadolu Efes tomorrow (17/11, 18.30 CET), for the 10th round of the Euroleague.
“I don’t agree with distinguishing between home and away victories. It just happens that we have played against good teams that played better than we did”, the Olympiacos’ coach, Giorgos Bartzokas said, addressing the comment that the team seams to be failing away from the SEF. “Each Euroleague game, either you play at home or away, entails a great level of difficulty no matter what. It doesn’t have to do with playing against Efes on the road, it has to do with playing against this team that has a lot of talent, has eleven foreign players and a good coach. They are the European Champions and what we need to do is to play very well. We need to play above our standards if we want to win”.
Breaking down the Turkish team’s game, he pointed out: “If anyone takes a look at the numbers, they are going to see that they are the top Euroleague team in scoring by its facilitators. They are a pick n’ roll team at heart, much more so than in previous seasons. They have the most points per possession from their facilitators, which means that Larkin, Micic, Beuabois, Simon, all those who run the pick n’ rolls, score a lot more and they of course play an important role in winning or losing. So, we need to defend well there”.
Finally, about the his first impression from Quincy Acy’s first days with the team, he said: “He’s what I expected him to be. He’s a very good player. What we need him to give us, I’m sure he will deliver. We simply have to be a little patient because he hasn’t played a game in months”.