Fragkiskos Alvertis expressed the belief that Panathinaikos lost a big opportunity in Moscow tonight, at the press conference after Game 1 of the Euroleague Play Offs series. Alvertis cleared that he believes that there is a long road ahead for both teams.
"It was an extraordinary game today. Especially my players played really well and I am satisfied of the way they played. We lost our focus at some point and we made some wrong choices. The truth is that we missed a great chance! Nevertherless, nothing is over yet. We are looking ahead. We'll fight till the end of the series for the best. The way the game evolved it was a matter of a couple of free throws. If we made them we could have won. But this is basketball. We cannot do anything about it now. We move forward. This game belong to the past. We 'll see what we did wrong and what we can do from now on".
Regarding the psychology, Alvertis stated: "This is the life of the players and the coaches, as I get to see this last period of time. We had the chance, but, as I already stated, this is basketball".
Asked about the strategy of the team, he said: "Our strategy gave a lot of options. Either to get the game into the paint, or to shoot from a distance. All depended on the circumstances".
Finally, he was asked about Dimitris Diamantidis: "Everybody knows who is Diamantidis. He is an exceptional player! He is our captain and a player who always thinks about the team first".
Maciulis: We made stupid mistakes
Jonas Maciulis stated: "It was a tough game and an overtime was needed to crown the winner. We had the chance to get the win in 40 minutes, we had the chance to get the win in overtime too. But we made some stupid mistakes and we were defeated. Now we only think about the second game on Friday. It will be a different game. Tomorrow we'll go to practice and we 'll get directions from the coaches for the next game. We'll see what we did wrong today, in order not to repeat it. The certain thing is that we are going to fight hard to get the win".
