Bartzokas: «Let’s make our fans proud»

The coach of Olympiacos, Giorgos Bartzokas, said he was happy for making the final and committed he and his players doing the best they can, so that the team fans feel proud.

“We were proud in the first half, missed free throws, threw nine in the garbage and lost 4 or 5 lay-ups. We were hasty and were not reading the situations accordingly. We were giving room to the ball handlers to dribble and attack the rim, we made this mistake repeatedly. We talked during the break, changed a few things and showed our support to the players, because we got wind of their nervousness. I told them to close the score gap in the third quarter so that we could have a chance in the fourth one. But we dominated though! The score was 27-2! Our defense was compact, we did not allow Monaco anything, we moved the ball and found the open player. We made some crucial shots, so the pressure went to the opponent. We did all that we had to do and we are happy for qualifying to the final. We thank our fans for coming here from so far away to support us. They were amazing! We are going to do the best we can to make them proud”.

Asked about the ‘keys’ to the turning the game around, he said: “Thomas Walkup is our key when we play defense. He made two fouls early and was removed for the game. We protected him, he did not play the second quarter, he was fresh and together with Fall, Papanikolaou and Canaan, they did all that had to be done in the third quarter to dominate the game”.