Tyler Dorsey, Fenerbahce: 'Every game’s come down to the wire'

Playoffs

Game 4

game Olympiacos Piraeus vs Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul

Playoffs

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Fenerbahce Beko IstanbulFBB

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Olympiacos PiraeusOLY

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Overview

Dimitris Itoudis, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul head coach

“I want to say congratulations to our team, everybody: those that played the game and those that were not dressed due to injuries or the fact that we need to dress [just] 12 players. Everybody deserves congratulations. Overall in the series, strategically and defensively, we’ve managed to keep Olympiacos below 20 points in each quarter; I think [that in] only one quarter they scored 26. That’s a huge effort defensively on their key players – they have extremely good and talented players and a great system. The fact that today they were sharing only 11 assists says something, too. We had issues, and obviously this was a close game – they took over, we took over – but we stayed composed. We’ve got to fix offensive boards and turnovers; they’re playing good defense too. Big applause to the fans, they kept believing in us. Even though in Game 3 they hit a big shot, they kept believing. And in this process as a new team, we proved that we deserve to be over here this year and that we can play with and compete with whoever, with huge respect to Olympiacos. We got to a tiebreak, to the final [game of the series]. It’s not going to be easy, but we’ll try to analyze and leave it to the moments. The players trust and believe the process. A lot of things happen behind closed doors. In any business, you get a reward for what you’re doing behind closed doors. You’re getting rewards in front of the fans, in the lights, but you get those rewards for your effort behind closed doors. The guys are working hard and it’s not an easy process. We have a lot of new systems, but it helps that from the management to the personnel and the fans, we’re believing in the process. We’re trying to build and everybody deserves congratulations. It’s not over. Before Game 1 I had the feeling it would be a long series – it is a long series and we’re enjoying the moment right now.”

Georgios Bartzokas, Olympiacos Piraeus head coach

“Dyshawn Pierre scored three-point shots which were crucial in that moment of the game. We needed to be careful to avoid his shots, because we mentioned that this guy would be the decision-maker, the crucial guy. We allowed him to make 3 open shots, and he made them. Congratulations, it was a game as we expected it to be, a tough game, and now we have a game on our home court. This is our chance now.

“Another tough game, difficult for both teams. With the pressure [Fenerbahce applied], we made a lot of mistakes. I’m not talking about turnovers, I’m talking about mistakes on defense and offense.”

Dyshawn Pierre, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul forward

“We’re happy that we could get this win and stretch it to Game 5. Obviously, me making open shots was on my teammates. A lot of the attention was on the big men, especially Johnathan Motley, who got the ball out to open shooters, and luckily we were able to make the shots. It’s going to be an interesting atmosphere in Piraeus. Obviously we’re excited, we knew it would be a hard series, but we trust in ourselves and we’ve seen that we can beat them. We’ve just got to get the next one.

(Message for the fans): "We really feel the support – thank you for coming out tonight. It was a great atmosphere, it’s like this always but today was a little bit special. So, thank you and we’re gonna try to get the win in Greece for y’all.”

Tyler Dorsey, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul guard

“We laid it all on the line. It’s elimination. We made mistakes, both teams made mistakes. It’s been a tough series; every game’s been coming down to the wire, so I expect nothing less for Game 5. It’s amazing, we battled and we gotta get prepared. We’ve got a couple of days and we’ve got to focus. No matter how it goes, we’ve got to play hard and leave it on the line [in Piraeus]. We’ve got a big opportunity. We talked about turnovers, that was the big thing at halftime – trying to limit that – and we did better in the second half. We’ll learn from that. We’ll look at the film and we can’t do that in Game 5. Everything’s going to be critical and we’ll get better. We get another game to look at things and that’s a blessing. We’re coming, we’ve got this mentality and we’re here for a reason. They’re the No. 1 team and we’re the eighth seed, and we’re taking them to Game 5. We should be proud, but we want more and we’ve got a chance to make the Final Four. We’ve put ourselves in a great position, now we’ve got to let this game go and get ready.”