THE Panathinaikos He is preparing for the first “final” in the normal Euroleague duration against Monaco and Ergkin Ataman He emphasized the importance of the fight for the European champions.
Speaking to the media during Panathinaikos’ departure for Monaco, Ataman stressed that injuries had affected his team, but called for more effort from his players in defense to make the “greens” to get one of the two wins they need to get their Euroleague players.
Ataman’s statements
“The situation is very serious. The reality is that we have two games and we have to win one. We are now concentrating on trying to win this first game in Monaco. Monaco is a very good team, it is at the same level as us. We have great players, this is the reality. We are one of the candidates for the Final-Four for the title but so does Monaco. Of course, Monaco came to our headquarters and won us over the last seconds in the last attack. If we are a good team we have to go and win the race. But it’s a game to have energy and play good basketball. Only then will we have the chance to win and “lock” third place. “
For training: “We are a great team. Unfortunately, in the last month, in the last 3-4 weeks we have many injuries. We had injuries two months ago and in the last 3-4 weeks with injuries, other players started taking more time in the Greek league and Euroleague. After that we lost the tension in training, some players began to be very tired, we lost our mentality. The mentality of being ready from the beginning of the race and it was dangerous to us.
We try, we worked well this week but again we have some injury problems. Now it’s not time to think about injuries, it’s time to win and go to Monaco to play good basketball and win. It’s not just enough to play good basketball, I’m trying to get through the mentality that even put 99 points if you eat 100 you will lose. People are waiting to win, go to the playoffs, go to the Final-Four, win the title. Being a star is not enough, being good aggressively is not enough. It is important to be a complete player, to fill the team, to fight for every ball and you manage to win in difficult situations. “