PanathinaikosHead Coach, speaking during the Press Conference after the encounter stated: “Kolossos forced our players to contemplate their actions with the short layouts it used. We, I believe were lacking energy due to consecutive competitive obligations something apparent from our rebound accumulation, an area in which we are overall good in. The game was essentially defined close to the clutch, once we decided to make the swaps with the short line-ups, when Kolossos experienced a scoring draught. We failed to perform well through the greatest part of the encounter. This game will help us to improve in the future. I wish all the best to Coach Vassilis and Kolossos”.
Head Coach of Kolossos Rhodes, Vassilis Frangias, stressed: “To me this Press Conference is kind of a déjà vu… It has only been a few months since I was last in Rhodes . I am very happy to be back on the island and in the team. What I must first request from the administration is a person to relieve the team from its bad juju. All that has taken please and I have been reading about being abroad, were quite a few; many injuries and unlucky moments. Even this evening, Giannis Georgallis broke his nose. This unlucky streak must end at some point. We knew all too well which team we were up against. In the end we ran out of strength and this was obvious from the fact that we were unable to shoot properly. We competed using very few players. I believe that upon Dendy’s return plus the addition of yet another big man within the week we will become better. During the next few days we will have news concerning the addition of another big man. I do not view it to be a good idea to get into trouble, even though our ranking is not so good and we have a tough schedule ahead of us. The championship is extremely interesting and chaos exists in the last positions. I would like to thank the fans for their warm behavior towards me since my return; today they were an important assistance. I believe that the boys rewarded the team with quite an effort. As Kazantzakis our famous author wrote and I quote “reach where you cannot”. We reached a high level of performance but at 36’ we ran out of strength. None the less, I can’t complain for the effort the guys input. I would like to wish the best of luck to Panathinaikos in his European effort and in Greece also. What I hope for is for us to be healthy for the ensuing season; when the coach changes, mentality does too. What I want is for us to be a reliable team and gradually I believe that we will make it and reach a steady level of performance”.
Jason Kapono added: “We knew that the game would be tough due to Kolossos’ new coach on its bench but also due to injuries. We were not exactly certain about what we were to face and we had issues in the different heights. Many times, perimeter players were moving in the paint. This threw us off our game many times. Kolossos played a tough and moody game. We picked up certain rebounds and ran onto fast breaks. We made certain defining threes and in the end managed to win”.
Marcus Hatten stated: “As you all saw, our performance across from Panathinaikos bared no resemblance to our previous one in the encounter versus Kavala. We were an entirely different team as far as our mood, our energy and our intensity. We were facing many injury issues since, missing many of our very important guys. In any event we input a great effort. I believe it is my turn to welcome our new coach who essentially is old. He helped us to quite an extent at very important moments through the game. We must continue behind the equivalent zealous during the games to come in order to manage to win”.
