Bartzokas: “Whenever you choose an opponent, the God of basketball punishes you”

The opportunity to “lock” the first place of the regular season in the Euroleague was lost by Olympiacos on Thursday night (06/04), knowing the away defeat by a score 87-79 from the already banned Red Star.

Speaking at the press conference, the coach of the “red and whites”, George Bartzokasreferred to today’s match, emphasizing among other things that Olympiacos he is not going to choose an opponent the last game before the playoffs. At the same time, the Greek coach also spoke about the system for conducting the tournament and the playoffs.

What Giorgos Bartzokas said in detail:

For the Red Star game: “I would like to congratulate Asteras for the desire to play, for the energy they spent to beat us. I try to convince my players that everyone has extra motivation to beat us, even if Erythros has no hope of qualifying for the playoffs. No one is giving us a damn. We have to fight on the court. Today we had players out of the game. What they had to do to win.

We have one more chance, to beat Baskonia in our stadium and come out first, which is a great achievement for the players. We have to play better than today. These games will help us to be in the right feeling. About what we need to have to finish the season as well as possible. Good luck to Asteras in the ABA League.”

Why his players had no sense of the game: “The atmosphere was amazing, very supportive of her team, very kind to us, which I appreciate. It’s something we all have to analyze. We are winning a lot, we have a winning record, ten matches away, it seems that some players are out of form, for different reasons. Of course, I cannot accept that we are tired of winning. You need a tough loss to get back to the basics of basketball. I can’t say that we are tired of winning, but some losses help the coaches to convince the players about what is important in basketball, a rebound, a good defense. We have big ambitions. So far we are doing well in the competitions we participate in. We need to be in good form, keep our noses down until the end of the season and keep fighting.”

On whether Red Star is better off with Campasos on the roster: “In the first round when we lost in Piraeus, Erythros played very well without Kampasos. They have a great roster, good players at every position. EurLeague is difficult, because it is competitive. There are strong groups that do not continue. Sometimes the details are major injuries, the chemistry.”

On whether Olympiacos chooses an opponent in the playoffs: “No, whenever you pick a team as an opponent, the basketball God punishes you.”

For team mistakes: “If you have a good rebounder, he has it in his mind to go out and get rebounds. So the mistakes were an important part of the match. The nine we made were crucial, we lost the momentum. We lost our confidence. If you analyze a game, you can see a lot of things that you can say and ask of the players. What I saw today is that we were not ready to do what brought us here. I saw in the second quarter that we had passes and we weren’t making them. Today we didn’t have the concentration to play as we should”.



For the playoffs and if Erythros could be there: “We have to take things as they are. I respect all the teams, it’s a tough tournament. You need stability, to play the whole year and forget the defeats, to prepare for the next match. I honestly see a lot of teams that could be in the playoffs. We are talking about seven teams fighting for eighth place until the end of the season. I have respect for all teams and all coaches. We need to have more teams competing.”

For the organization system: “It’s difficult for us coaches, you can finish 9th and have so many wins. It’s a shame for the teams. We are in a good position, but many teams with big budgets, with good players and coaches are out. In the NBA they find ways like play ins. Maybe we should do something similar.”