After suffering a home upset on Wednesday, Barcelona will be desperate to bounce back at Palau Blaugrana against an Olympiacos team determined to move within one win of a third straight Final Four.
Georgios Bartzokas, Olympiacos: 'Now we are going for game number 2'
Barca's focus will be improved play inside the paint after converting just 18 of its 38 two-point attempts in the 75-77 defeat. Jan Vesely will be particularly keen to bounce back after enduring a miserable birthday, scoring just 3 points with no field goals converted and 3 turnovers. A collective focus will be better ball control after Barca committed 17 turnovers on Wednesday.
Olympiacos was able to enjoy its Game 1 triumph despite minimal contributions from key offensive performers Thomas Walkup (0 points) and Alec Peters (1), who should therefore be fresh and motivated to give their team more help on Friday.
The Reds will again count on the three-point shooting and energetic defense of Isaiah Canaan, and Barca needs its backcourt starters to step up after notably quiet games from Nico Laprovittola (9 points) and Tomas Satoransky (0 points) against the Reds' excellent defense.
Georgios Bartzokas, Olympiacos head coach
"It's clear that must not relax. From the start, our philosophy has been that we came here for one game, the one last night. Now we are going for game number 2. We never thought about the series as a whole and that's what us coaches are trying to have the players embrace. These series are long, unpredictable and there are always upsets. Experience and history attest to that. We have to focus solely on tomorrow's game and try to do the best we can to win. We don't want to be thinking that our mission has been accomplished. We want to win tomorrow. We know how tough this is. It was also very tough last night. Barcelona is an incredible team, they have lots of experience, good players in every position and to win you have to play really well, be focused and it's not going to be easy at all."
Giannoulis Larentzakis, Olympiacos player
"The game tomorrow is going to be a completely different one. The mindset is the same as yesterday. It was simply one win, we need two more to go to the Final Four. We will try to contest for the win again as if the game last night never happened."