By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
Life (and the season) doesn’t end in the Final Four and Panathinaikos’ players have to experience to know that very well. On the other hand, they never had to start the Greek finals just four days after the Euroleague Final For, but never say never.
Now it’s the moment for the Greens to prove that the failure of Istanbul is already past. And that will happen only if the win the Greek league championship by beating Euroleague champion Olympiacos in Piraeus.
Kostas Kaimakoglou said after the end of the third place game in Istanbul: “We have only one goal left, the Greek championship. It’s not easy, but what happened in the Final Four must make us try harder, because on Friday we lost the chance to do something great. We must give everything we have in the next 15 days in order to win the Greek championship”.
His teammate Stratos Perperoglou agreed: “Our last goal is the championship. We don’t have time to think, we have to keep our head up and win at least one game in SEF”.
But in order to achieve that and break the home court advantage in the Greek finals, Panathinaikos’ player need to clear their mind from what happened in Istanbul and Kaimakoglou explains: “We could say that it was a pity what happened in the semifinal against CSKA. The important thing now is not to cry over spilled milk, but to believe again on ourselves and do the best we can in order to win the Greek championship”.