SFAIROPOULOS, IOANNIS
Olympiacos Piraeus
"I want to congratulate Zalgiris for the qualification to the Final Four. They played much better in the whole series and they deserve to go to the Final Four. For us it was very important that we lost Game 1, we lost the home-court advantage, we lost the advantage that we tried to get the whole season for nine months. It was very difficult here in this atmosphere against this great team to get the break back. We tried to do this, but we didn’t succeed. There is a reason for that and it’s not an excuse; we had a lot of problems with injuries. One week before the playoffs we played two Greek League games and we didn’t have four players for these games because they were injured. Those games should have been preparation for the playoffs, but unfortunately because of these absences, we tried to manage the injuries and not to prepare the team for the playoffs. We had also in Game 1 the new injuries to Milutinov and Bogris, both with knee problems, and they added to the players who came back not ready to play that caused big disorganization in our chemistry and our roles and who was ready, who was not ready to play. And of course we were out of shape after, let's say, one month of injured players that he plays the first game in the playoffs. I don’t have any complaints from my players. They tried to play their best, especially the injured players who played with their desire, although the doctors didn’t let them play with injections and they sacrificed themselves for the team. Let’s be realistic, the most important part of the season is the playoffs. You need to be in your best shape. You need luck to do this sometimes. Unfortunately we were unlucky."