Following his winning EuroLeague debut at OAKA, Vassilis Spanoulis praised Mike James and revealed a conversation he had with him before the game. The Greek coach also named the aspect where he thinks Monaco should focus on.
Vassilis Spanoulis made his EuroLeague debut as Monaco's head coach on Friday night at OAKA, celebrating a huge 91-88 victory against Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens.
| Player of the Game | |
|
EFF
35
|
| Alpha Diallo | |
| Points | 24 |
| Accuracy | 8-11 |
| Rebounds | 7 |
| Assists | 2 |
At the press conference, the rookie coach praised his players for their overall effort.
"We distributed the ball very well," he noted.
"We managed to make some small adjustments. I'm not complaining since we won. We gave 26 assists. We want to create a winning environment. When you see Mike James playing like that and handing out 10 assists you realise we're a good team," the 42-year-old coach pointed out.
"He showed tremendous maturity," he praised the reigning EuroLeague all-time scoring king.
"He had six points and 10 assists -- and he would have scored a lot more if it hadn't been for Panathinaikos' defense on him. It is not easy for the top scorer in the history of EuroLeague to pass like this and want so much to win."
"We have a lot of strength, a lot of physical elements, guards that belong in the Top-3 of the EuroLeague," he added.
Spanoulis also reflected on the process that led him to Monaco.
"Everything happened so quickly this week," he admitted.
"I left for Monaco, I told my kids I would be back for the game. It was an amazing game. Whoever won would have deserved it. Two great teams, we faced the EuroLeague champions, in front of 20.000 fans.
In two days, the players understood what I asked. The most important thing for me, even if we lost, is the identity we want to have. And I saw that," Spanoulis stressed.
"Everyone was focused, we had scorers and creators in the backcourt. Our big men fought, everyone played their part. And it's not just points.
Alpha Diallo covered everyone on defense, had things you won't find in the boxscore. Tonight we showed character, we were there, we found great shots and I'm happy for the win. Not many teams will win here in OAKA," the EuroLeague legend continued.
Spanoulis was asked about Monaco's players individual quality and talent.
"We all know we got talent. I can see it too, there is plenty of it. We have amazing players on one-on-one. But you can't play only that way. It's not tennis, it's team sport," he stressed.
"Of course you want your go-to guys to close out the games and I am very happy to have them. We have a lot of work on defense, I put some new plays in and we got confused somewhere, it wasn't easy. But this is the way to achieve something good."
Spanoulis revealed a conversation he had with Mike James when he took over the reigns of Monaco.
"I told him that all teams want to stop the opponents' star players. I told him that if he wanted to win, he had to be smart. He's a great scorer, but also the best players of them all.
When you hand out the ball, your teammates are happy too. The most important thing is that all we care about is playing good basketball and winning games."
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