Bartzokas: “Tough match against Zalgiris, let’s match their aggression – We hope that Petrusev will be fine”

A tough match awaits on Friday (11/10, 21:15) against Zalgiris for the 2nd matchday of the Euroleague. George Bartzokasas he reported on his Media Day Olympiakou.

THE 59-year-old coach he pointed out that the Piraeus must match the aggressiveness of the Lithuanians, while he also spoke about the matter of rebounds.

In addition, he left open the possibility of the participation of Filip Petrusev (who was absent from Thursday’s training) in the match with his team Andrea Trinchieri.

In detail what he said about:

-the first home game of the season against Zalgiris: “The image she showed against Barcelona was encouraging for her. He played with great aggression on both sides of the field and especially in defense. They played really hard and I feel like the opponents didn’t expect that much. They had nine steals that resulted in turnovers. They put their hands on the ball, generally attack the ball a lot, protect their basket. They also have some top level defensive players at the “4”, “5” and on the perimeter. So what we have to match is the aggression, the physicality they will impose on the game. It is a match that the opponent does not expect to play hard, but it will be a hard game».

-the missed rebounds in the Euroleague opener against Fenerbahce and how much the team has managed to improve in this area: “The missed rebounds are on the one hand a bit mental, but it is also essential because the team’s top two rebounders are missing. Fall and Milutinov will theoretically solve a large part of the problem. Of course, many rebounds were far away, they were related to the participation of many players. The issue right now is cruelty. The EuroLeague is such a league that talent is important, but because there are certainly many good players, good coaches, in the end it is a league where very hard basketball is played from the first game, not only at the end and in the playoffs. So that’s the point, that in all contested balls you have to go first, have a mood, everyone has a mood to help each other. We are currently in the process of improvement, we are not as solid as we should be. I think it’s normal, we have new players, everyone gets to know each other’s game and that makes us more hesitant, more indecisive».

– Petrusev’s absence from training: “It doesn’t have covid or anything like that. We hope he is well tomorrow. He won’t train today, he went home because he wasn’t feeling well».

– about when what he has in mind will start to show on the floor: “I can’t specify the time because in principle it has to do with when our wounded will return. At the moment our training sessions are very intense but cannot last long. Yesterday (09/10) was Fal’s first training session. So far we have only had 2 tall ones in training. So it’s about that. When the whole team will train together. Fal entered yesterday, we hope that in the next few days Milutinov will also enter, the competition will increase, the duration of training will also increase and ultimately the duration of good performance in games will also increase».