By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
VITORIA-GASTEIZ — For many years, Greek coach Dimitris Itoudis was the alter-ego of Zeljko Obradovic as his assistant, or if you prefer associate coach, in Panathinaikos. Since then many things changed. Itoudis won the EuroLeague as the head coach of CSKA in 2016 and on Sunday he will have the chance to repeat.
“There’s pressure, but if I didn’t want the pressure I wouldn’t do that work”, said Itoudis, while speaking in Greek to Eurohoops. “It’s about my ambitions and also about my self-criticism. With all due respect, nobody is my bigger critic than myself. I spend hours talking about my substitutions, the matchups and everything with my staff. There are too many ‘whys’. I do a lot of overthinking at night. And I always try to keep those things separated in my mind. There’s should be a time for basketball and a time for friends and family. I might be with a friend and suddenly thinking about the pick and roll defense. I guess this happens also in many other jobs”.
Speaking about the semifinal game, Itoudis tried to explain the comeback and why it was a fight. “First of all, it’s not easy to beat the champions three times during the same season. Still, my players believed when we were down by 11 and then down by 14. I could see it in their eyes. And our last comeback was not a fast run. It was built play by play for many minutes. When finally, Madrid started to feel us near them, then our focus became even bigger”, said Itoudis.
And after that, it was time to relax a bit and Itoudis was asked to describe the man who is currently the best Greek player. Itoudis’s take on Giannis Antetokounmpo was the following: “First of all he is a worthy ambassador of Greece and I don’t think that he has a ceiling. The way he plays and his concentration has become totally different. He embraced the role of the leader, something that’s not easy, it’s not given, it’s something that he built himself. He works on his weaknesses, his outside shooting, his handling compared to his size, his decision making. There’s not a better example than Antetokounmpo for any young Greek player. Basketball is constantly evolving and Giannis grew up watching players like Papaloukas and Diamantidis, who didn’t necessarily score, but made things happened. Of course, I don’t want to say that scoring is something bad, we had Nick Galis in Greece after all, but the fact that we had young kids grow in Greece who knew that the MVP could be the guy who dished six assists or made things that are not registered on the stat sheet, it’s something big”.
And what about Sunday’s Final against Anadolu Efes? Here’s what coach Dimitris Itoudis had to say – in English – about tomorrow’s game basketball-wise