By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Panathinaikos defeated reigning champions CSKA Moscow and Rick Pitino gave credit to Dimitris Itoudis, whom he compared to great names in basketball history.
“I’ve coached against Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, so many great coaches. I put the coach of CSKA with all the great coaches I’ve gone against, I put him up there. Obradovic, Itoudis, they’re great, great coaches. He’s doing a fabulous job, I admire him. He’s Greek, we’re very proud of him”, Pitino mentioned at the post-game press conference.
He also commented on Greek fans and their reaction to the team’s defeats, suggesting it takes patience and not panic to build up momentum and get the right results.
“Russians are normal people. In Greece [smiles], I laugh so much because when you lose panic is like unbelievable. When you lose, instead of saying “okay, we’re getting better, we’re improving”, and we’re playing Barcelona on the road, Real Madrid, CSKA, Maccabi… Instead of saying they’re great teams, give them credit, the sky is falling in Greece. So thank God in this new year, you people are normal. Because we handle it with great patience, with no panic”, he commented.
“I as an American laugh at the culture, because when we lose a game we wanna bring in Kevin Durant or we want Bill Russell to come back. It’s funny because panic sets in instead of stay steady, improve, get better, change things, so consider yourselves very lucky”, Pitino added addressing the journalists in attendance at the press conference.