Panathinaikos left for France, where tomorrow (21.00, Novasports3) will face Nancy, for the third day of Euroleague. The team flew to France without Vassilis Spanoulis and Fragkiskos Alvertis. Zeljko Obradovic and his players all talked about being focused against the French team.
Zeljko Obradovic stated: “Nancy is a very athletic team. They like to run and they go for the offensive rebound. Nancy has 10 offensive rebounds per game till now in Euroleague, so we have to pay attention. We must play well and control the rhythm. To get the win is something of great significance for us, after the bad game we had against Barcelona. It’s very important to get the win, since we all know that every result counts in the phase. After the game against Barcelona we worked very well in the practices and it is something that became obvious in the game against Panionios. Yesterday we had one more good practice. We all have to be focused 100% in the game that we have to play now. We must also have in our mind, through the whole year the game against Barcelona, in order not to repeat such a performance. We must have motive every time we step on the court. We’ll be fine, as long as we play the way we played against Panionios”.
When Obradovic was asked if we can compare the game against Roanne last year (Panathinaikos had won 123-83), with this against Nancy, he answered: “We are talking about different teams here. If we have in our minds what had happened last year, it will only hurt us. We must respect first of all ourselves and then our opponents. Every game is important and we have to focus only to the one we have next in our schedule”.
Dusan Kecman stated: “It’s a very important game and its importance is rising, after the defeat in Spain against Barcelona. We have to perform better especially in defense, to control the rhythm and to adapt to the game and whatever the game itself will ask from us”.
“We demonstrated that we are back on track”
Stratos Perperoglou stated: “We will face a very athletic team, which uses the fast break a lot. The first we have to do is to not underestimate our opponents. We have to perform well. Against Barcelona we performed really lousy, but I believe that it was a bad parenthesis that closed with the game and the way we played against Panionios. We demonstrated that we are back on track. We want to continue like this. We believe that every game is important, we pay attention in each game separately and what we want is to do our best in each one of them”.
Nikola Pekovic quoted: “We are a team with 12 very good players. All 12 players are playing in high level. It’s something that is good for the team. We have prepared for this game and we must get the win. We have to run and play better than the way we played against Panionios”.
Antonis Fotsis didn’t practice on Tuesday due to high fever, but he traveled with the team. He also spoke to Euroleague: “"What happened in Barcelona last week must stay behind, but we have to learn from that lesson and use it in the next Euroleague games. All these days we have worked really hard in practice, and I am sure that none of us wants to suffer such a big loss in the future again. Panathinaikos is a great club, which knows how to handle such unpleasant situations and this is what we did by beating a Euroleague team, Panionios, on the road. Now we are going to France to continue the winning streak. To make it happen, we have to play hard and never underestimate the opponents despite their heavy recent losses in the Euroleague."
