After the Euroleague opening game, Panathinaikos is facing tomorrow (OAKA, 23/10, 19.00, without fans) Aris in the HEBA championship opening game. Dimitris Itoudis, Zeljko Obradovic’s collaborator in the “Greens” technical team talked about the game tomorrow.
“The first thing to keep in mind about the game tomorrow is that there will be an important difference compared to the game we played Thursday against Unicaja Málaga; and this thing has nothing to do with the competition aspect of the game. The difference is that we will not have the fans with us; we will be playing in an empty arena. This is something that makes any game entirely different. Now, as regards our opponent…. It is a team that was put together basically a few days ago, with some additions. The only picture we have about Aris is practically from the Cup game, when they had just proceeded to some changes. We do, however, know fairly well some of its players. If we could say anything about Aris it would be that they have offensive talents in several positions. Oliver can score, Kerusch can score, and so does Verginis who was here with us and we know him well, and so does Tapoutos in position four. I believe that they have a variety of plays, as well as many players who have the ability of cutting lose and play one-on-one, in other words score or pass the ball to others. We must place great emphasis on that. From that point on, we are on a good path too. We are having good practice sessions to keep us on the same level of concentration that we are right now and to improve game by game. We are at the beginning, but Aris needs more time too. They have worked more compared to their first official game and we must definitely respect them going out on the court, same as we do with every opponent.”
*Panathinaikos’ preparation will be completed with the afternoon practice session that will take place in the OAKA indoors arena.
*The referees for the game will be Afentoulidis – Poursanidis G. – Tsounas. Commissioners for the game will be Aggelopoulos and Ioannou..
