Bartzokas: «We are not changing our approach»
The scenarios in regard to Olympiacos’ final placement after the completion of the regular season of the Euroleague are abundant, however, Giorgos Bartzokas and his players are only focusing on tomorrow’s game (10/03, 20.00 CET) against Alba in Berlin.
The German team has no ranking related interest in the game, which according to the ‘reds’ coach doesn’t make them dangerous but neither makes them harmless. “Teams that have no ranking motivation are not always the most dangerous ones. Each game is different. However, the Euroleague itself has a special meaning as a competition even no ranking benefit is involved. As you all know anyway, your final placement determines your bonus as well. No team is indifferent. Apart from that, each player, each coach and each team wants to be competitive and win as many games as possible. I think this was proven yesterday, as well as many times before in the season. Alba is a good team, they have been playing well lately and they have a quite good winning percentage with the Euroleague. We have to not keep our approach the same. Just like each time we only target our next game, the same needs to apply now, to stay completely focused on it”.
Asked whether the main goal for Olympiacos is to secure a top four position, he made clear: “It’s not true that our primary goal is to secure home court advantage. Olympiacos’ goal had been to make the playoffs, because we hadn’t been there in previous seasons. We are quite close to achieving that, however, I mean what I said before and I try to instill it also in every member of our team, we cannot afford to change our approach. We cannot change our orientation and start talking about 2nd, 3rd, 4th seed. We have extremely difficult games ahead and we need to solely focus on the game against Alba, that is very demanding. I’m telling my team not to be reading scenarios about how many wins we need to make the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th seed and so on… I’m not saying all that to appear I keep a low profile. We are close to the playoffs and I think this is a significant achievement for our team, but even this is still not mathematically secure. We have seen too many things happening out of the blue in global sports. The game against Alba is difficult and that’s where we need to be focusing”.