Panathinaikos has left the game against CSKA Moscow behind it and, after the day off in the HEBA championship, the “Greens” are now called to compete against Brose Baskets in an away game in Bamberg. Dimitris Itoudis referred to the German team and the way it plays, underlining that last Thursday’s mistakes may prove “useful” in this Thursday’s game.
“The first thing that we are focusing on is that we are playing against a very athletic team. All their players, without any exception whatsoever and including their tallest player Pleiss, are very good athletes and they are largely based on that: full-court press with zone-press or man-to-man defenses and leading their opponents’ to turnovers. It is one of the first things that we should bear in mind. As a whole, they play with a very low number of turnovers, the average being less than 10. They are one of the top teams in Euroleague in as much as committing the least turnovers is concerned. They also challenge every game. They count with one victory and three defeats, but they never give up the fight. They were defeated by Unicaja Màlaga in the last second.”
In view of the game, its importance is also part of the equation: “This is a very important game for us, particularly after the defeat against CSKA Moscow. If we want to keep our position in the top spots we must win. Our job will be far from easy. They press on both ends of the court. They are very active in half-court too, both offensively and defensively. All their players can play defense in almost every position; they form many traps and try to lead their opponents to committing many turnovers. They have our utmost respect with regard to the quality they have.”
Turning to more specific details, Itoudis starts with the guards: “They are very important in both creation and execution. Roberts, Jenkins, Gavel, Jacobsen, are players who have their own situations after a pick ’n’ roll or after isolations, and their coach provides them with enough such situations through their offensive strategy game. They are players who create their own shots for themselves but also for their teammates. Tucker is sort of a “trump card” between positions three and four; the coach tries to particularly use him in position four so that he can attack taller opponents facing the basket because he is an isolation player. Especially when he plays in position four and Slaughter in position five, the team becomes even more athletic and change in almost every pick. Suput is a point of reference, particularly in the low post, in position 4, since this is where he normally plays. He is an experienced player and we have come across him before. For us it is going to be very important to lead them to turnovers because when a team has so few ball losses it means that it has many ball possessions. As we should also be careful of the rebounds, because they often go for the offensive rebound due to the athletic built of its athletes; and all that in a home arena where the fans make their presence felt, rooting from the very first second, there is a band, and generally speaking there is noise around.”
The final words refer to Panathinaikos: “Apart from Tsartsaris’ injury, we began our preparation without any additional problems. Unfortunately, Kostas will not be able to help us for a while. It goes without saying that we must not repeat the mistakes we made in the game against CSKA as far as rushing things go, keeping bad distances, and giving CSKA the opportunity to close up in the score. We committed 4-5 turnovers that could have been avoided and we could have finished the game to our favor not only during the normal duration, but also in overtime.”
