Kalaitzakis: “It is the most important game of the decade for Panathinaikos”

His most important match Panathinaikounot of this season, but of the entire decade characterized this with Maccabi Tel Aviv on Tuesday night (7/5, 21:15) the Panagiotis Kalaitzakis.

At the same time, in a question he received about the pressure that exists, he stated that there are so many things in life that have pressurewhile they (meaning the players) play basketball and get paid.

In detail, what Panagiotis Kalaitzakis said:

For the match: “It is the most important match not of the year but of the decade for the club. Tomorrow we will have the support of 20-25 thousand people and we will play in front of our people. Which will help us from the first minute, the first contact, in defense. The world is also in the game. We must be focused. We are well prepared. We rested today and tomorrow night we have to finish the work».

For Maccabi: “Very good team of the coach. They have a talented team. Of course we know Baldwin won’t play, but they have other players as we’ve seen in the series, like DiBartolomeo and Blatt, who have stepped up, like Lorenzo Brown. They can score easily and in the series they have punished our mistakes and pulled off a lot of surprises. It’s not a tactical match, it’s a battle and it will be decided by who wants it more».

If there is pressure: “We play basketball. There are so many things in life that have pressure. We play basketball and get paid. There will be a lot of people and a lot of fans, but it’s not pressure, it’s what we dreamed of. If I can speak for myself, I’ve dreamed of playing games like this, a Game 5 in front of so many people, so I don’t think it’s pressure, but an opportunity for ourselves to go to the Final Four. Panathinaikos hasn’t played in 12 years».

For the 2012 series: “It was in 2012 when Panathinaikos beat Maccabi here again in Game 5 and history repeats itself. You read about the tickets and you know that only 20,000 people can be in the stadium, but there are 80 or 90 thousand who wanted to get a ticket and it was sold out in a few hours. Whenever we want to thank our fans for being here all season and the stadium was full».