Bartzokas: “We are not thinking about first place but home advantage”

He may have everything he needs to succeed, but according to what Mr George BartzokasOlympiacos is not thinking… so much about the first place in the regular season of the Euroleague, but the home advantage.

The coach of Piraeus also spoke about the upcoming match against Villerban at SEF, stressing that the “red and white” should pay attention to her, since she won for him in France.

What the coach of Olympiakos said…



On whether there is relaxation at Olympiakos: “The mind always wants to be lazy. When he finds the opportunity he does it and certainly because the year is long in obligations and fatigue is a bit normal. Our job, that of the coaches and everyone around the team is to prevent this from happening, because we have four games ahead of us, three of them at our stadium and we want to finish with the best possible result, to finally see where we finish.

The fact that we are the first team to reach the play offs and we need a win for home advantage, I consider it very important. Beyond that, we take nothing for granted. We consider every match to be very difficult, regardless of whether the opponent has a points motivation or not, like Villerban. We don’t forget that we lost in the first game. In a game we controlled. They are a team that has talent, they have athleticism, they played with confidence until the end and we ended up losing on a buzzer beater at the end. We have to be ready tomorrow, because nothing is guaranteed. You don’t get anything.”

On how dangerous the French team is: “Villerban is a typical French league team, which has a lot of players with athleticism. He roams around the rim defensively, but also offensively. This raises a concern. Beyond that, they have players like De Colo, who as you all know has great skill and great contact with the basket. Generally it is a team that is well set up by its coach. I think they are a good team and in terms of details they haven’t won more. But he has also made big victories during the year.

The fact that the Euroleague always gives the players the opportunity to be motivated, because everyone wants to play well in these matches, they are motivated against us because we are first. We haven’t played any opponent who is sluggish for a long time. Everyone plays 100% in the “reds”. We have to respect the opponent a lot. We have to respect our effort, where we have come and play a good game. We have to be as we should be on both sides of the field”.

For the goal of first place in the standings: “To be honest we don’t think about it. This will go, if we have such a possibility, in the last matchday. Right now, our next goal is to have home advantage and that requires a win. We don’t think that if we lose this one we will go to the next one. That’s how we learned all year. We tried to establish this, that we should not look away and let’s look at the game in front of us”.