Bartzokas: «We continue with the same approach»
Giorgos Bartzokas said the win over Valencia to be among the most important of the season.
“I think this win to be among the most important of the season, mainly because we were coming from winning the Greek Cup, where we also got to play three games in three days. We were in a kind of festive mood at the beginning of the game. Valencia played the game with great motivation. They started out playing with much more energy than ours and with a lot more desire to win. We did not make a good start and that’s why we were trailing by ten in the first half. But the third quarter had been amazing. We completely changed our approach. We played motivated, we played defense first and foremost and through our defense we found rhythm in the offence as well. We finished with ten more possessions through rebounding, 25 assists, that is a huge number in that kind of games. It was a very important win, congratulations to Valencia. Congratulations to my team, we continue with the same approach”.
Asked whether he believes that Olympiacos and Valencia will be making the Euroleague playoffs, he replied: “I definitely believe that to be the case for my team, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. As for Valencia, I think they are one of the strongest contestants for the playoffs”.
Finally, about the calls from the NBA to Sasha Vezenkov and if he thinks that he will staying or leaving in the summer, he commented the following: “I honestly don’t care about what it is said within the NBA circles. Sasha is under contract with team and he also has an NBA opt-out. We are going to be talking about it at the end of the season. I don’t know if he’s going to be offered a contract from the NBA. However, right now the only thing I care about is my team and Sasha is one of the most important players of this team. We focus on that. He’s a fantastic player and of course we desperately want him to stay. But this is not the right time either for Sasha or for any other player to be talking about summer moves”.