Ataman: “We deserved to win, we played perfectly – Nan is the best player in Europe”

THE Ergin Ataman justly characterized her victory of Panathinaikos over Olympiakos in SEF and the game of his team is practically perfect.

“I think we deserved the win 100%, because we played perfectly defensively and offensively on a tactical level, except for some minutes in the second period. We controlled the game, we had a lot of movement, we had a lot of shots but almost all of them were free. Olympiacos, especially at home, is very good in defense, but with the good circulation of the ball we controlled the game. We played the whole match with three guards and it worked really well, maybe that was the key for us. We were more comfortable and defensively I think we worked well against Dorsey and Vezenkov“, emphasized the Turkish coach.

“We know Olympiacos very well, they put a lot of pressure in defense with Walkup on Nan, but we didn’t give the ball to Nan so much in the first half. He was getting the ball at the end of the attack. Walkup is a very good defender, but works well when players like Nunn or Slukas get the ball later in attacks. It worked very well tonight, as it did against Fener“, he added.

Asked to comment on Kendrick Nunn’s performance, he said: “Nan is a fantastic scorer, has an impressive first step and uses it to get past his opponents. Now he shoots very well, at the beginning when he came he was a bit off target, while he also plays very good defense. He understands the game very well and he did a great job today. For me individually he is the best player at the moment in Europe».