Bartzokas: «We had to win and we did it»

The coach of Olympiacos, Giorgos Bartzokas, was not satisfied by his team’s performance in the game against PAOK, however, he made clear that he has no complaints from his players.

“We had an intense game in the usual atmosphere here in this gym. PAOK, despite absent players and problems fought in the game. We kind of wanted to finish the game without really trying and that resulted in lack of concentration and easy mistakes. We made quite a few turnovers in the game. But we largely controlled it and won. It shouldn’t have been a procedural game for us and we should have played better. Nevertheless, I don’t have any complaints from the guys. We have had a very tiring season up to now, with many games. Our main facilitator, Sloukas, hasn’t played a third game in a row and the same goes for Fall, so what we needed to do was to win, which we did. I wish PAOK the best for the remainder of the season”.

Asked whether he was surprised from elements PAOK presented on the floor, he replied: “We knew that PAOK has a problem in the center position and that they would be mainly playing with forwards and guards. It’s something that sometimes can be a weakness for the team that has to play that way, and others it becomes a weakness for the team that has to counter it. You kind of leave your comfort zone. PAOK tried to play as they should have, they made a good effort, but obviously on our part and I don’t mean to say that we underestimated the game, we seemed to not want to get overly tired to do the things we needed to do”.

In regard to whether there is a certain time frame for the return of Kostas Sloukas and Moustapha Fall, that were knocked out by a viral infection, he replied: “We play Aris on Thursday and I think Fall will be playing, since he has already practiced twice individually. Sloukas was still running a fever yesterday. I hope he’s better tomorrow. But right now, we don’t know”.