By Dionysis Aravantinos/ info@eurohoops.net
Pascual explained that the “Greens” managed to get the win, despite a bad shooting night: “I think tonight we played smart in the second half. In the first one, we played without controlling our emotions. Sometimes this is very dangerous. But in the second half, we played smarter on offense. On defense, the first five minutes of the third quarter we didn’t play very well, but step by step after that we improved and this is why we won the game. To me, I think it’s one of the most important games because we won the game without good shooting on offense. I think it’s difficult to win a game like that against a team like Barcelona. We shot really bad on three-pointers, really bad free throws, but we still to fought and played defense and this is how we won this game.”
FC Barcelona’s coach Sito Alonso gave credit to the Greens and specially to Ian Vougioukas: “First, we have to say that Panathinaikos has played very well. They have a very good team, they are doing a very good job and it’s very difficult to beat them here. But from the beginning, we wanted to punish them for the switching defense they do, especially with Gist on the court, and I think we played well, moving the ball well and avoiding turnovers. But when we were winning by six or eight points, we turned the ball over two or three times and allowed them to run. They run well and found very good options to get over their bad moments in the first 10 minutes. After that, for me, the most important player, especially in the fourth quarter, has been Vougioukas. With Vougioukas on the court, we had a plan to attack him and take advantage of those moments. But the opposite happened. He played very well in the low post, getting four points in one-on-one situations and the assist to Calathes, and maybe the game changed in this moment. That frustrated us and they took control of the game and we could not compete in the last few minutes”.