Bartzokas: “We must be hungry in every match, play in red”

Only a few hours after the difficult home victory over Villerban, the Olympic found in “El. Venizelos” for the trip to Serbia and Belgrade, where tomorrow (14/11, 20:00) he will face Maccabi Tel Aviv for the 10th matchday of the Euroleague.

Shortly before the departure of the team, the coach of the “red and whites”, George Bartzokas, he stood once again on the fact that there is no easy game in the competition and that everyone in the team must be… hungry and play in the red so that the desired results come.

At the same time, he outlined the profile of the Israelis and the work done by Odent Katas.





In detail what Giorgos Bartzokas said:



For the game against Maccabi: “There is no easy match in the Euroleague. It is a constant process of the coaches to convince the players that there are no easy nights. Of course, sometimes complacency is something that cannot be avoided, because there are so many competitive obligations for all of us, that the mind and body sometimes do not follow… But the game against Maccabi is a very difficult match, so the we have estimated. A team that has a special way of attacking. A lot on the short roll and build and execute from there. Panathinaikos had a lot of difficulties yesterday, just like many teams who underestimate the situation with Maccabi, are struggling. We believe that we will have a difficult game and they have to play much better than yesterday to win.”

On whether there was complacency in the game against Villeurbanne: “We come from ten days in the red, we played games that were “do or die” for us. And sometimes the reaction is a bit human, without being able to justify it, because we have a lot of players and they have to understand that every game is two points, every game has its own importance and importance. We are in a phase where we need all our players to play well, because this level requires that. We do not sleep peacefully before any Euroleague match, even if we come from a streak. Here we have to be hungry in every match, play in red, with great intensity, play together, which is very important and think only of our team and not ourselves”.

For the phrase “great teams win even on their bad nights”: “I adopt this ‘cliché’ because we’re not that happy with our performance yesterday, but at least we didn’t come away sad from the defeat, so someone has said ‘it’s better to win than lose’, I applaud that.”

On Blatt’s return: “The execution that coach Katas has in Maccabi requires the point guards to have the ball in their hands many times, to play continuous hands off, until they find a good execution or pass point and he is obviously a very important player. Based on pre-injury assists, M.P. in games. But we are talking about a team that we should not focus on one player, but on the way they perform, which is unique and very nice.”