Bartzokas: "We should match up to Zalgiris’ toughness"
Olympiacos’ delegation left for Kaunas, where tomorrow (15/03, 19.00 CET), will be playing against Zalgiris for the postponed game of the 19th day of the Euroleague.
“Zalgiris has been playing very well lately”, the Olympiacos’ coach, Giorgos Bartzokas pointed out. “They have won four out of their five latest games, with very convincing performance4s. They play very hard in defense and with great motivation, completely contrasting their ranking. But, just like I had said a few days before, all the teams that have no ranking goals, have quality, good coaches, good players and a desire to play. They have also some of their injured players back on their roster and are now playing very well. It’s self-evident, they beat Real easily there, they also beat Barcelona, so you understand the amount of difficulty this game entails”.
Asked if he thinks the timing is good, given that the game against Panathinaikos comes next at the SEF (17/03), he replied: “No, I don’t think it’s good, because the games against Panathinaikos are always particular. However, we have five games ahead of us and from those we have to only focus on the first one. I’m trying to convince everybody that this is the most important one. From the videos our players got to watch, they realized that Zalgiris is playing really hard. They put enormous pressure in the defense. Lauverne’s return have made things more rational in terms of their playing style. It’s going to be a very difficult game”.
On what it is Olympiacos should be paying attention to, so as to return with a win, he said: “We need to match up to their tough playing style. That’s the top priority. If you don’t do that, if you only go to play with your talent and your offensive capacity, you are out of luck. You have to be at the same level as far as toughness goes”.