By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
As Saras said after the game: “There is nothing you can tell your players to make them immediately start playing. These guys are fighters and showed all year that they are fighters, so I don’t understand why we came out like this. I don’t understand why in such a… You know, Olympiacos is a team with two titles in the last few years. Why did they have more motivation than we did? It is not acceptable. So, they found the way. You can say only so much when you are a coach, you know? Meaningless games do not exist. As a competitor, you have to go out and compete in every game. It was a big shock for me how we started. To tell you the truth, it was not a big shock that we came back, but it was a big shock how we started. I didn’t expect this, I thought the team was ready. Maybe yesterday’s results kind of messed their brains a little bit. Let’s hope we can show our second-half face in the playoffs. If we play like in the first half, obviously, we are not ready for the playoffs. If we play like in the second half, maybe we have some kind of chance.”
From his side, Olympiacos coach Giannis Sfairopoulos added: “Congratulations to Zalgiris for the win. I think it was a derby at the end of the game, derby in the regular time of the game and also in overtime. Small details – one rebound, one bad defense, one good offense – judged the game. I think that with the roster that we had, we tried to do our best. It was obvious that our frontline was not full and we had problems rebounding, playing defense and protecting the rim. I hope that everybody will return for the next practice so we will work all together to be prepared for the playoffs.”