Priftis: “Everyone was upset about what happened at SEF”

On the eve of the game against FC Bayern Munich (March 22, 9:00 p.m., Novasports Prime, Match Center at Sportish), Dimitris Priftis spoke about what (didn’t) happen in the previous EuroLeague game, the one with Olympiakos. The Panathinaikos OPAP coach referred to his team’s ups and downs this year, but also to the wounded selfishness of his players.

Details of what the trainer of the shamrock said:

“We have to see that first, we have to react. The main thing is to stop this ebb and flow, where in two ten minutes we’re doing very well and in one very bad. And it’s not just the last game with Olympiakos, it’s also this cup.There are a lot of games like in Larissa or yesterday in Kolossos where we play with two different people, there are some explanations of what they have to do with the way we approach the games and we have to fix it, but there are also some structural possibilities or non-possibilities that we have that cannot be changed, especially if some players are missing.

To be more specific, there are some five-man rosters that defensively lack the ability to control the pace of defense but at the same time have a greater advantage in attack. At the same time, Jovic is absent and we don’t have a man who’s a pure point guard and has a bit of control over the rhythm and the game. I would say that these are two structural elements that we cannot change, we are trying to improve the conditions in which we play the games.

Whether he’s optimistic for the latter part of the season, he said“We’re hoping to get at least some key parts of the squad healthy so we can come into the playoffs with a balanced and best possible roster. We cannot predict what will happen, there have been several issues throughout the year. Of course all the teams were struggling but definitely we were a bit more affected with the line-up we have”.

When asked if he found a lack of athletic selfishness, he replied“Sporting selfishness is something we all have or should have. It should be a point of reference what happened at SEF so that we can be more stable, balanced, stronger and more combative. What’s going on in his head.” You can’t do that. I know everyone, but I can see that everyone is annoyed. We’ll take care of it and we’ll try. The problem is having the squad that allows us to do this in better conditions.

For the remaining EuroLeague games he commented: “It’s basically a fight for survival. We have problems tomorrow too, a lack of guards as I don’t know if Bohoridis will succeed. Ross and Nedovic. Of course we’ll be using some of the other formats you’ve seen on both Colossus and Ionian. We will try to do our best and minimize our ups and downs. Up and down that we don’t have to have such large deviations to have 2-3 consecutive possessions and not 6, between 2-3 get in a good one either in defense or attack and this allows you to make contact with the record score. “When the ups and downs are too great, it’s correspondingly difficult to recover.”