By Rigas Dardalis/ dardalis@eurohoops.net
At this point of the season, no player in Olympiacos roster is more beloved by the Greek fans than Kyle Hines. The undersized center is the heart and soul of the team and it was proven once again in the road win against Siena.
Hines is the kind of player who leaves for those kind of games, so the intensity of Thursday’s match didn’t impressed him: “Ι think all the games on the road are intense. It was just up there, one of the most intense games of the season, but like I said every game on the road is like that. We knew that it was going to be a difficult game, because Siena plays really, really well here in that great atmosphere and we probably had to find some way to win. The win wasn’t the most prettiest, but we found a way to do it”.
Olympiacos still has to fight to get in the second place of the group and the play offs home advantage, something that is not yet a given according to Hines: “No. It will not be smart for us to think that. We have to go game by game, continue to get better, continue to grow. Now we have to worry about our Greek league game and start preparing for Maccabi Tel Aviv next week. Like I said, just take it game by game. If we continue doing it like this, we could get the best position possible at the end of this”.
The key for him and for the Reds’ success is that he has faith in his team and his teammates, despite the problems that may arise on and off the court: “No. The type of team we have and the character we have…we are build for this type of situations. Siena did a very good job of being aggressive on some of our key players like Spanoulis, Josh (Powell) and Stratos (Perperoglou), but we knew that we have people on our team that were ready, no matter what the situation is. Specially with Printezis out, we knew that the situation will be difficult, but that’s why we have 15 players on our team that are always ready on a moment’s notice. You can see that from this game. Pero (Antic) come up big and Pap (Papanikolaou) played in the “4” position, a position he usually don’t play. That’s the character of the team. When the situation is tough we have to play harder, play better and also play together”.