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Bartzokas: “We have a good chance to pass – We would have already passed if it wasn’t for one mistake”

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Optimistic about his chances Olympiakou to qualify for the Final 4, Giorgos Bartzokas appeared, who praised the reaction of his players to emphatically come the 2-2 against Barcelona (92-58).

I don’t want to mention anything about numbers or statistics. It’s all about how I feel. I am grateful to the players and the fans for this performance at this moment in this series. I don’t want to say bad words about the previous match, but we were disappointed, but we picked up our pieces and came ready to play with that energy, with that motivation, with that determination. Barcelona had incredible accuracy at the start but then we got a lot of energy, the lads who came off the bench helped a lot and it shows that our squad has a lot of depth. We are happy for the 2-2, but now we will go to Barcelona, ​​play our basketball, fight as always. Barcelona is a great team, the quality they have is great, the experience as well and you saw how they started the match. This means that our victory is even more important”write down.

At the same time, he referred to Papanikolaou’s self-denial and said: “I want to give a special mention to Papanikolaou, his blood tests were bad, he should normally have been out of this game after the illness he had. But he also sacrificed himself for the team, he was not normally able to play in such a game with such intensity. You all saw how he helped us, as did everyone in the team who contributed to the win».

As for visiting teams going 0-18 in Game 5, he said: “Records have never concerned me. We have a match there, with our chances of winning. It’s not easy, but I think we have a serious chance. I’m not intimidated by the margin of victory. The tension we created by leading them to make the wrong choices is something that excites me. Many times you impose yourself on the opponent mentally. Now we have to make a breakthrough».

Asked about Tuesday’s dietary mistake, he answered: “This group of people has shown over the years how solid they are. We have won so many titles, we have broken records, we have had great victories… I didn’t sleep at all on Tuesday. I have full respect for EuroLeague referees and understand the difficulty. Contacts are left and it is very easy to make mistakes. I absolutely respect Mr. Nedovic, I think he is a very talented referee, but he made a mistake as the Euroleague said. I tried to focus on what we didn’t do well. We would have now reached the Final 4. Let’s hope this whistle doesn’t cost us a third consecutive Final 4 appearance».

Finally, about Lorentzakis he said “… I don’t know how bad the sprain is, we’ll see».

Source: Sport Fm

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