THE George Bardzokas talked about the exclusion of Olympic From Monaco (78-68) to the semifinals of the Euroleague Final Four, with the experienced coach standing in many Piraeus injuries.
George Bardzokas referred to the difficulty of managing frustration, while revealing the great mental and physical cost of his players’ efforts, while pointing out that in the small Olympic final against Panathinaikos (Sunday 25/5/25, 17:00).
The statements of George Bardzokas
About how the day after the blockage is: “As always for all the groups experiencing this whole situation, it is very difficult. You can’t imagine how difficult it is. Especially for our team coming from a continuous Final Four, which had made a great year in both the regular season and the playoffs. Unfortunately we played in a forty minutes (ed. The year), as things in European basketball are like NCAA, where even the first in ranking can be ruled out, because it may not be in a good day or because the opponent will be in a good day.
So in a forty -minute year, our year was played. We were inferior to the expected, circumstances. We played in a different way than what we get used to. We had a season low in assists, we had more mistakes than final passes, we had a season low in tribal, having some of the best players in Europe in our team.
We didn’t control our emotions, we went to play the game, we wanted to finish it from the first quarter, and this was a game that wanted a lot of patience and wanted to look at it. And when we lost some easy shots, some easy baskets, some shots, or we were not doing well in the attack, Monaco was gaining confidence, becoming tougher and we were more hesitant in everything. It happens to all groups that lose in a semifinals or in a final.
Unfortunately we did not satisfy our fans, who were once again fantastic, were here, as in all Final Four. They believe in the team, they showed it all year. Unfortunately a forty minutes I don’t know if it cancels the effort of a year, but it’s definitely something that saddens us very much. “
If he feels that there was an over -dignity in yesterday’s (24/5) match: “No. All the year all we do is humble. You’ve seen it in everyone’s statements, no one was superfluous, no one underestimated the opponent. We know very well in a Final Four what can happen and we have lived in previous years. The only thing that didn’t exist in our team was over -optimism. If I can say that there was something, it would be excessive pressure. “
As to whether the hard -haired Monaco was surprised by him: “Monaco is a team that has players with such features, players like Blosomgim or Dialos, but it certainly has quality. When you don’t play with energy, you can even lose 30 points as it lost in the French league. But when playing with this intensity it is a very dangerous team. I don’t think in a final Euroleague we didn’t expect it to be a hard game.
I repeat, as far as I can appreciate it now because in everyone’s mind there are 15 personalities and everyone processes it differently, that we played very well below our level and our abilities and Monaco played very well. It became a combination of things, that is, it excluded us in the semifinals. It saddens us very much, it is very psycho -, but as someone has said in sports, the sad and sorrows are much more and much less the joys. “
For injuries in view of the GBL finals: “Look, we have a lot of injury issues, we had them before, the last 20 days, which many don’t know. Many players injected every day, many players injected cortisone to play, we didn’t want to say it. It is certain that the Goku who again pulled out a pull will not play tomorrow, we will discuss with the players and tomorrow morning because we will try to play with a fresher team in view of the finals we have on Friday in front of us. “
For Evan Fournier and his crying after the semifinal: “I have nothing to say. Everyone is manifested in a different way, in a different place. Another with his family, another on the court, another in the locker room. I never want to distinguish players in the team. No one was indifferent. Everyone had perhaps more than they had to win the match. Many times you don’t have to go beyond the things you do to win the match. Everyone was making their efforts and I wouldn’t want to distinguish someone. “