The Athens “Panathinaikos” team represented by Mariaus Grigonis suffered a defeat at the start of the Euroleague playoffs.
The Lithuanian club lost 87:91 to Tel Aviv “Maccabi” basketball players at home and is 0:1 behind in the series with three wins.
After the match, the head coach of PAO Ergin Ataman did not hide his disappointment.
“I don’t think we deserved to win, we missed 10 penalties, we made too many mistakes at the most important time.
The judges were funny. Two fouls were called on Baldwin’s long shot. I think it was unfair to give these free throws. I got a warning, but I said it was a warning for you. Then he gave a technical foul.
We lost the home field advantage and what we were building during the regular season,” said the Turk categorically.
However, E. Ataman said that the pressure is not important, and that his team is much better than the opponents.
“The series is long and pressure is not a factor here. Players, attitude, referees are important. Maybe the EuroLeague will punish me for that, but they are important and pressure is not important. We just didn’t deserve to win as a team.
I think we are a much better team than Maccabi. The fact that we are behind is not important. We have to play our basketball.
I promise everyone that we will go to the final four. If we don’t get there, I won’t be Panathinaika’s coach next season,” the strategist said.
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