Andrea Trinchieri: 'When you play back to back, it is like Forrest Gump' / News - Basketnews.com

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Bayern Munich passed Panathinaikos OPAP Athens 81-78 and finished the double week with two victories. The star of the first game, Vladimir Lucic, did not have his best scoring night. However, the experienced forward made the last shot to bring the victory.

Player of the Game EFF 20 Darrun Hilliard Points 20 Accuracy 7-9 Rebounds 1 Assists 2

Panathinaikos coach Dimitris Priftis shared his disappointment that although his players were leading for most of the game, they couldn't see the finish line.

"Obviously, it was a tough game. We fought the whole game. I think that with the way we played, we deserved to win," Priftis said. "At the end, details brought the final outcome."

"I just want to say that my players fought and had a good spirit. I'm pretty sad that we didn't justify this effort with a win. Congrats to Munich, and we go home," he added.

Despite his flu, coach Andrea Trinchieri made it to the press conference after the win against Panathinaikos.

"It was an extremely complicated game," Trinchieri admitted. "We didn't shine but to tell you the truth, who cares when you play back to back. It is like Forrest Gump, it is a box of chocolate, and you don't know what kind of game it is going to be."

While Trinchieri admitted that his team didn't perform so well, the Italian praised Panathinaikos players' effort in these tough days.

"So, we had a very bad first half, both in offense and defense we were very confused. We missed the assignments. Bad night. But in the second half, we played better. We had better execution on offense, we were better on defense.

Then, the game took a road that was rough for us. They played with confidence. Papapetrou was scoring big shots, and they are a good team. We didn't underestimate that; we just didn't put the game in the direction we wanted in order to control it," Trinchieri commented.

In a season where any team could beat any other team, the coach stressed out that they are not in a comfortable position yet, but they will at least have a chance to take a small break.

"They had great desire to bounce back. The game was down the line extremely complicated. But we were able to make defensive plays, offensive plays. At the end (of the day), we are talking about a crucial, pivotal game in this EuroLeague season.

A loss would send us back in the mud. We are still in the mud, but after looking at our schedule, we played a lot of road games, we played home games against very good teams. I believe that at least we can breathe. Hopefully, we can rest a little bit to the next game and build something," the Italian concluded.

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