Bartzokas: «We had expected that the jerseys alone could win the game»

The coach of Olympiacos, Giorgos Bartzokas, talked about his team’s bad night against Monaco and also about the necessity to immediately  revisit the basics of their game in view of the one against Villeurbanne.

“Congratulations to Monaco for a great win, which they obviously deserved. For us, it was a really bad evening. Even in the first quarter, when the score was still tied, we only fouled once and that was at the end of the quarter, when at the same time Monaco had approximately shot 80%. We came out to play without any desire to sacrifice, without the slightest of fighting spirit and we still expected the game would be won by the jerseys alone. This is impossible. Monaco has had 8/10 threes in the first half and they gained confidence through that. Some of those were good shots, but they were difficult ones, from a really long range. The second quarter, 29-9 if I’m not mistaken, was really bad for us. We never returned to the game, because we have had many players having a bad evening. Of course, that’s the Euroleague. You cannot be winning everywhere. What we need to be doing is to focus on the game we have to play against Villeurbanne in two days. We have somehow to return to the basics of our game. Playing strong, sacrifice for the team, play together”.