Comfortable victory over Armani Milano and an ideal start to the first “devil’s week” of this year’s Euroleague for Olympic, who prevailed with the imposing 89-68 of Italians in SEF.
Speaking at the press conference, the coach of the “red and whites”, George Bartzokasfocused on the management that his team did in the match, while he spoke at length about the way he is asked to manage the rotation and the large roster that he has in his hands.
Giorgos Bartzokas’ statements in detail:
“I take our appearance very seriously, for this stage of the season. We were leading throughout the game, we had to manage the moments when the score was at 15 to lock the result early. We had some lack of communication and concentration in the third quarter. It means a lot to us our consistency offensively and defensively, we must not let our emotions play for us, we must stick to our principles.
We have to be good defensively, we have the players to do that. Fal is back who plays an important role in how we defend. Fournier, for example, puts in a lot of effort defensively. We will improve both defensively and offensively, it is the third match of the EuroLeague, it is early and all teams have ups and downs. McKissick is the epitome of a team player. We have been together throughout my second term at Olympiakos. With Fenerbahce he was our best player, in the next he played very little. He is very important, we hold him in high esteem anyway.
A player who has two good games can be left out of the rotation in the next one for someone else to play. We trust all the players, in general we have such a plan. Players might play five minutes in a match, they might have 25 in a major match. McKissick is the example, it can be Tyler Dorsey who played very well with Panathinaikos and less so tonight, it has nothing to do with punishment, it’s just the numbers, it’s the rotation like that. I repeat it is not easy for every player to get used to it. There are players who are used to multiple possessions, players who need time to be effective. We believe that this will slowly improve.
The stable five we did in the EuroLeague. I read that I have already changed 34 fives and how I am looking. This is far from reality, I want to show every player that he can not play at all in one match and be five in the next. I want to keep them warm all year round. The three of the five, if we include Sasha, will be the classics, Papanikolaou, Walkup, Fal. We will see how the situation goes, the form of the players plays a role, we will manage this thing by taking the criticism as well.
We stayed last year because of injuries. We didn’t have the first round we wanted, the second round was the best in the EuroLeague and in the end we were again, Fal hit and we lost the championship. Depth is important. It’s a nice venture for us.”
Source: Sport Fm
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