Bartzokas: “Sloukas is a great player, he helped us win”

Olympiakos returned from -16 against AEK and clinched a psychological 80-74 indoor victory thanks to Kostas Sloukas terrible attacking day. Red-Whites coach George Bartzokas spoke about the performance of the Greek Guard and the pressure exerted by AEK.

It’s a difficult time for us due to absenteeism. We didn’t have Sasha Vezenkov available, but we will come back. They put us under a lot of pressure but we persevered. AEK has been working on this game all week, but we haven’t. They have quality, they went the game where it should have been, but we we answered”.

When asked about Kostas Sloukas’ big night and his leading performance, George Bartzokas replied: “These are journalistic tricks. He’s a great player and he played great, he helped us win.”

Later, in the press conference, Bartzokas said the following:

“Congratulations to the team. In difficult conditions we won this game and played 12-15 minutes. AEK played amazing, shooting the ball very well with Rautins who had 7/8 up to a point. They have us under pressure let’s face it, that’s what we had to play for. It was an interesting experience for us, we’re going through a difficult time, there’s a lot of absenteeism, but when the kids come back we’ll have good performances again.

I always say that the opponent also plays. We have to commend AEK, I already have. He played without pressure, he had nothing to lose. We, on the other hand, were sluggish and played the ball wrong. We wanted patience. AEK is a special team, the big ones shoot and play face to face in the basket. When we switched screens, we stopped the score of its peripherals. “When we circulated the ball Sloukas played well too, either scoring three points or beating the big ones open and we won.”