National team: The highlights of Greece – Italy – What Dimitris Itoudis said – Newsbomb – News
Our representative group, having won the quality teams of the group, practically “hug” the first place.
THE John Antetokounmpo he was amazing again (23 points, 10 rebounds), having 2-3 opponents in each phase. THE Tyler Dorsey he proved again that he was what was missing from the team, while this time there was also a third axis in the attacking game. THE Dimitris Agravanis gave valuable solutions, scoring 13 points (2/2dp., 3/4 tr.), 5 rebounds and 4 blocks in 24’17”!
Dimitris Itoudis: “We are combative and competitive”
In detail what was stated by Dimitris Itoudis in ERTafter the end of the match:
For the continuation of the group: “And with the other three good ones of our group. All teams get better if we relax. Now we want to open up the rotation, Papagiannis is active, while Kostas can”.
For the fact that in this match too they got a marginal victory: “That’s how the tournament games will be. We don’t want to go into grand guignol situations. The Italians because they do not have tall players to play, mainly from the perimeter and try to control their own creation and execution. They gave us some problems, but everyone contributes to the defensive rebounding. We made some differences, but we relaxed. Sorry for the technical penalty, the ball was for us at that stage, but I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”
For Italy causing us some problems in the second half: “Normal or not, we don’t play alone. We didn’t come with teams that just want to lose, they can’t cause us problems and trouble us. The thing is, we can’t limit all of this.”
On Giannis Antetokounmpo and how he helps the team: “Obviously it’s obvious that the team has an excellent player who draws opponents to him. That doesn’t mean we don’t have other players who are looking to replace him. He needs to rest., when he is in we play differently, when he is out we change the style. Even Larentzakis, although he played a little, was a catalyst.”
On whether he saw from the team that he wants: “We are getting close to being a competitive team. We claim 50-50 balls, we are combative and competitive, but we also need to become a little smarter. The team has smart players, but defensively we have to work smart.”
For those absent and whether he congratulated the players: “We want to see the medical data. Papagiannis is feeling well, we are waiting for Kostas to enter so that we are ready. I am pleased and congratulated the players. We are still at the beginning. We try from every game apart from the result to improve in some areas”.