Bartzokas: «Defense will be the key»
Olympiacos will be facing Panathinaikos tomorrow (30/12, 20.00 CET) at the OAKA, for the 16th round of the Euroleague, aiming to return to winning in European competitions.
“We cannot deny it’s a special game”, the ‘red & whites’ coach, Giorgos Bartzokas, stressed. “Especially given the gravity our opponent gives it. They have a sold out for days not, they have been anxiously waiting for this game. For us, this is a game away from home, in a tough court and against a definitely very good opponent. However, I think that the game is even more important for our opponent than what it really is…”
Asked about the keys to the game, he replied: “A big part of Panathinaikos’ game depends on Bacon. You don’t have to be an expert to understand that. He takes a lot of shots, he is very capable at scoring. When he scores a lot, Panathinaikos scores a lot as a total. When he doesn’t score a lot, Panathinaikos is going to lower scoring. So this match up is going to be very important for whoever is guarding him, but also in terms of our group effort. From there on, Panathinaikos has potential, they have talent, they have experienced players in all the positions, they have players with a defensive role, they have players with offensive roles. All in all, we’ll have to play a good defensive game, just about how we played here when we won for the Greek League. But we will also need to be better offense wise and make open shots, that we are certainly going to find through good ball movement. Also, we are going to have to be able and defensively respond to Panathinaikos’ targeting. Our opponent targets on certain players in iso situations, either at the post, or at the perimeter. We need to defend well both individually and as a total on how the team is going to cover for these mismatches”.
Finally, asked whether Sasha Vezenkov will be able to play, he said: “Things are not looking good. He is troubled by his injury. In theory, it is very difficult that he plays. But we’ll see”.