Grant on sportfm.gr: “Kalaitzakis and Juancho completely changed our game, they are a tough duo”

With defense for a seminar and plenty of protagonists, o Panathinaikos AKTOR he reacted and defeated her Fenerbahce 74-63 in the packed OAKA, making an important step for the four.

After the match, Jerian Grantwho once again left his… bones on the floor playing 35 minutes, spoke to sport-fm.gr and Alexandros Tsirigotis for the main factors that decided the match and brought the pink card to “green” hands.

At the same time, he did not fail to deify the two players who, in his opinion, tipped the scales in favor of the “clover”, namely Panagiotis Kalaitzakis and Juancho Hernangometh.

In detail what he said:

8 minutes into the game, the score was 7-19 in favor of Fenerbahce. From there, it seemed like a switch was flipped, especially on defense. What was it that changed the course of the race?

“The most important element was Panos (s.s. Kalaitzakis). He came in and started to put pressure on the ball, and it gave the whole match the energy we needed to pick up the pace. When he started doing that, everyone else’s defensive energy skyrocketed.”

Apart from Kalaitzakis, I think Juancho was also excellent, especially in defence. Do you think he showed today how pivotal he can be for the team?

“Yes of course, he always does that whenever he comes off the bench. He and Kalaitzakis completely changed the game for us defensively. The marking players couldn’t get into the spots they wanted or sometimes even get the ball. And on the rebounds, I don’t know how many he had, but Juancho got some very important ones. This duo, defensively, is very “tough”.

Do you think tonight’s victory was the ideal reaction after two bad defeats (Zalgiris, Aris) in the previous days?

“I don’t think the defeat in Kaunas was bad, Zalgiris is a really good team and they are in good form. Of course, though, it is very important to win a Euroleague game, especially against a team that is in the top 4-5 places. It was very important for us.”

He has done it many times earlier in the season, but do you think that Panathinaikos showed today that they can win in many different ways?

“Like you said, we win in different ways throughout the season. But especially today, we were able to win despite making just 2/12 three-pointers because we “locked down” our opponent on defense. This is very important for us and the rest of the season.”