Olympiacos wrapped up this year’s preseason with a victory; just a few days before competing in the EuroLeague Super Cup, defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv 77-72 at the “Neophytos Chandriotis” tournament in Cyprus.

After the game, Giorgos Bartzokas commented on the Piraeus team’s performance in the two friendly games in Nicosia, emphasizing that he would like more days of preparation to better “fine-tune” the team, while also mentioning the injured players Milutinov, Jones, and Papanikolaou.

Here is what he said in detail:

“Of course, these friendly matches give us an important picture. They were two games in which we didn’t play well; we didn’t find our rhythm and didn’t sustain long enough stretches of good performance. I’d say there were only a few flashes of brilliance. I don’t underestimate the fact that we beat two top-tier teams like Red Star and Maccabi. The fact that we have a winning spirit and do what we need to do in the end to win is important.

We certainly seem—naturally, perhaps, but practically speaking—unprepared to sustain strong stretches of play over a long period. Today we committed 10 turnovers in the first quarter and gave up fifty points in the other three. We did a good job defensively, especially when we started rotating players. Joseph helped us a lot with that—he was very good. And Ediai was fantastic in that area and helped us win the game. Obviously, all of this came through our defense. I wish we had another twenty days of preparation.

Today, Milutinov was dealing with some discomfort and sat out; the big men picked up a lot of fouls. Vezhenkov isn’t ready yet—he’s got an elbow injury and can’t play well—and Papanikolaou didn’t play. Jones wasn’t here. We need to come together as a team very quickly to play well.

We have two practices before the Super Cup. The injured players are being evaluated on a day-to-day basis. Milutinov was in pain and couldn’t play anymore. We’ll take stock of who we have and see what happens.”