Bartzokas: “It was one of our worst performances in recent years, in all areas of the match”

The “unscheduled” home defeat against Valencia was experienced by Olympiacos, with its coach, for the 14th matchday of the Euroleague. George Bartzokasdescribing his team’s performance as one of the worst in recent years and stressing the need for improvement.

In detail what the coach of Olympiakos said:



“It was one of our worst performances in the last three years, in all areas of the game. We paid for our performance in the second period. Whoever entered the match played completely outside our game plan. We had nine turnovers in the first half, two assists in the second half, so we were in a hurry to score. While we had a very clear plan for this opponent, an opponent who leaves the least points on the racket than anyone else. Instead of finding the extra pass, instead of reading that, we tried pull-ups, floaters, and eventually our two-point percentage was close to 40%. We didn’t deserve to win. When we had our chances in the fourth period, it was very difficult to win. If you miss six-seven layups without pressure, when you miss shots, when you miss so many free throws… We have to work to improve. We always have pressure. When the game went against, because of the good Valencia and because of our failure, the pressure came to our side. We were thinking too much in our decisions and that was a bad factor. We hope to improve, because tonight’s performance was very bad”.

For Peters: “What about the Peters thing? His wife finally gave birth at the time of the match, let’s wish him the best. Let’s say that they have given birth to three of our players in three of our matches this year. Williams-Goss, Fall and Peters. What can I say, invoke the goddess luck. Peters’ presence tonight was obviously important, he’s our best shooter and our leading scorer. I couldn’t do anything else, we’ll discuss it internally, I couldn’t do anything else about it. Here we are a professional team and when you lose you have to look for all parameters”.

For absences: “I want the absence of one or two players not to be so important. I’m the one who says a player can’t be that important. Our biggest problem tonight is that those coming back from injury have to help the team get into rhythm. That didn’t happen tonight. Many were not ready. Our chemistry was disturbed in the second quarter and of course I am also responsible”.

For gameplay: “We played wrong in the second quarter and in general there are two or three parameters that we should have handled differently and we didn’t. Many times there are critical phases that change the momentum. A three-pointer by Brazdeikis, a three-pointer by McKissick, but of course we have no excuse when we made so many mistakes from bad spacing, when you miss so many layups. How will you win like this? How many did we score, 56”.

For back-to-back games: “Unfortunately we coaches have to find the solution, we are burdened with managing a situation in which it is obvious that some players can never be in the same situation. Now we have the All-Star Game. We play in Bologna on Tuesday, we will leave on Monday and we will be away on Sunday. This is the situation in basketball, but tell me, how can you have homogeneity? Hopefully we’ll do it through racing.”.

For the use of new players: “Players who are coming now, I don’t know them well. How quickly they respond. We had a lot of laggards, we didn’t have a standout, you could say we relied on him. Too many were far below their level. We can’t make nine mistakes at half-time. At the beginning we had a tempo in our game and suddenly in the second quarter it disappeared. And suddenly you go into halftime nine points behind. Obviously I made a mistake there too, I had to manage the match differently. I tried to refresh the team, I tried not to do it automatically with many players but gradually, but we had too many laggards”.