Barça’s path to the final four of the Euroleague has become more difficult with their defeat against Olympiacos, who are ahead in the series (0-1). Despite everything, Roger Grimau, calm and slow for a long time after the final horn, tried to convey tranquility in the Palau press room and repeated that “the series is very long.”
The Barça coach regretted his team’s poor performance in the match. “We carried our bad start into the rest of the game. We had a bad first half, conceding too much, some easy points, although then we adjusted our defense and left them with 33 points in the second half. We have to manage to defend like this during the 40 minutes,” said Grimau.
The duel has been one of many comings and goings, although the dominance has almost always been Olympiacos with Barça in tow. “It has been a very difficult duel, with a lot of chewing. We have been able to run in some specific moments but we have to know how to find better attacking situations because we know that defense is their strong point,” he remarked.
The Palau ended up very excited with the referee’s performance, the result of a very tense night on the hardwood. But the Barça coach considers that his players have known how to abstract themselves and that their continuous protests are part of the game. “I don’t think we were particularly confused by the refereeing, we didn’t get out of the game,” he concluded.
For his part, Bartzokas certified that “it was a typical playoff game, with many contacts, a lot of intensity, many fouls and many difficult situations for the referees.” And, for this reason, he revealed that “we have used many players, almost all of them, expanding the rotation, to counteract so many fouls and so many contacts. We have controlled the emotions in a match so it is very important,” explained the Olympiacos coach.