By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Panathinaikos head coach Rick Pitino expressed his frustration with how his team got outrebounded during the away loss to Barcelona for Round 13 of the EuroLeague regular season.
Pitino mentioned the difference in the budget of the two clubs isn’t a reason that justifies how his players lost the battle of the rebounds against the Blaugrana.
“We played the last three games and I’ve been watching Panathinaikos from home and without a question, the no. 1 weakness of our team is rebounding,” Pitino said after a question regarding his team’s rebounding problems. “We got dominated on the glass tonight even on a missed free throw. All I heard all week and it bothers me is that they [Barcelona] got a 40M payroll and we got a 10M payroll. And I say to my players at halftime, what the hell does that have to do with blocking out and rebounding the ball. You can make a hundred thousand and you’ve been taught from seventh grade how to block out.”
Barcelona grabbed 39 rebounds, including 13 on the offensive end. Panathinaikos finished with 26.
“So that nonsense has to stop,” Pitino continued. “Because we are good enough to win whether our payroll is a 100k, 5m, 10mm if we block out and we rebound the ball. That’s toughness, that’s heart, that’s fundamentally blocking out. It has nothing to do with how much money you make. I was tired all week of hearing that. But they played with great heart. It had nothing to do with the fact that they are high-paid players. They played with great heart and deserve a lot of credit.”
Pitino was also asked about his team’s defense
“It doesn’t do good to score 19 and give up 20,” Pitino said. “That’s the message to all the players. We are a good offensive basketball team. We are unselfish and we pass the ball. We had a lot of open shots that we missed on crunch time. The other coach before me was doing a smart thing. He said if you don’t play defense, I’m taking you out, I’m sitting you out. Somewhere in the middle lies the truth. You got to rebound the ball, play defense and the defense has to catch up with the offense to get the win. We played better tonight than in our two victories. We were fundamentally a poor basketball team, if you watch the film. But we won. Tonight we played much better in the second half but we lost. Unless you play defense and rebound against teams like Barcelona in EuroLeague, you have no chance to win. Can we be a great basketball team? Great teams rebound with tenacity and play defense like their last meal is at stake. I haven’t’ seen that from Panathinaikos. So, it’s not about talent. It’s about playing like starving dogs in every single possession. That’s what defense is all about. It’s a mentality. We got to develop that.”
“We’re disappointed with the loss but Barcelona is a great basketball team. They got so many answers offensively and they play hard. So they have all the ingredients to be a great basketball team. We don’t. But not because of the payroll and not because of a lack of talent,” Pitino concluded.