Bartzokas on Barcelona – Olympiacos: “We are not a traveling club to say that the trip is a success”

Olympiacos won 77-75 in the first game at Barcelona for the Euroleague playoffs, but Giorgos Bartzokas stressed that the second match of the series is just as crucial.

In his statements before the… second act in Barcelona – Olympiacos, Bartzokas even made a terrible remark about whether his team’s presence in Barcelona is already successful, after he took the home advantage from the Catalans, with the victory in the first game.

Bartzokas’ statements

“From the beginning, our philosophy is that we see every game in front of us. Series are long, unpredictable and there are twists and turns, as experience and history have shown. We have to focus on Friday’s game and do everything we can to win. We are not a travel club to say that the trip is a success. Our goal is to go to the Final 4. We don’t want to get complacent. We know how difficult it is, as it was yesterday. To win you have to be very focused, Barcelona have a lot of quality. The victory yesterday will mean nothing if it is not accompanied by a qualification to the Final 4”, said the coach of the “red and whites” in training before Game 2.

Regarding the fact that yesterday he used all twelve players at his disposal, he commented: “All year we try to do this, the injuries did not let us manage the situation as we would have liked. Now only Papanikolaou is out of the rotation. I don’t know if it was a surprise to some that Luke played 17 minutes, but he has experience at this level, in training he was very good and I had no reason not to trust him. We have been in this group for 4.5 years and we have imposed some principles, which say that everyone is useful. We always deal with the players who don’t play a lot and they often help us, both in the league and in Europe. Everyone is willing and everyone wants to contribute a lot.”