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Flevarakis: We need to make this a low scoring game

Trikalla will have a hard time dealing with Panionios' rebounding prowess, and they will especially find it hard against the hosts' great defense. Therefore, a low scoring game which will lead to a convincing home win is to be expected

Panionios are looking impressive for now. Even though many have wondered how a team that lost all of its key players from last season would look like, the new signings turned out to be shrewd moves and Panionios started the season with wins in the Cup, league and the Eurocup on Wednesday. The last team to suffer defeat at the hands of coach Sferopoulos' team were Radnicki, who were in front for most of the match, until McCollum and Duvnjak took control of the game in the last quarter.

- We had a simple game plan as per usual - to control the tempo of the game and not allow their players easy shots. For the most part, the defense did great and that makes me very pleased.

Sferopoulos did note certain failings in his team's great peformances at the beginning of the season:

- We have periods of play when we don't play so well and that's not acceptable. There is still a lot of room for progress on defense, and we will work on that. As soon as we can get our defense to play well for longer periods of time, then our wins will be even more convincing.

This season Panionios are a team made to the liking of coach Sferopoulos, who took charge of an offensively minded team mid-season last year. Now the team's offense relies on McCollum and Duvnjak, who score around 60% of the team's points, while the others do an amazing job on defense. Their biggest problem is rebounding, because their frontcourt haven't been performing as well as the rest of the team. That is how Panelefsiniakos and Radnicki managed to have a dozen or so rebounds more than Panionios, which will be a significant issue when they face more serious sides.

Luckily for them, today they play against Trikalla, a team without a proper center, who have an even bigger problem with rebounds. Panionios might finally be better than someone in the rebound column, and if we add to that the usually good performance on defense and Duvnjak's and McCollum's contribution on offense, then we might see, as Sferopoulos so aptly put it, an even more convincing win than usual.

- We respect Trikalla, but this encounter should be all about us. With the support of our fans I believe that we will perform even better than we have so far and record another win.

In order to prevent that Trikalla will have to drastically improve their game from the opening round, when they lost against league newcomers Kifissia at home. We were saying that a huge number of inexperienced foreign players will be a problem for Trikalla, and that turned out to be accurate.

Against Kifissia they had a lot of turnovers and they did poorly on offense. The only thing that did work was the defense, as we predicted in the competition preview for this team. Trikalla coach Kostas Flevarakis said the same after the match:

- The visiting team are a much more experienced side than us and it's no surprise that we lost. We are a completely new team and we will need a lot of time until we find our game. The only thing I can be pleased about is our fighting spirit and our performance on defense. However, we need more time to do better than that, because we don't have experience at this level.

Due to all of the above, and their lack of proper centers, the management's last week's decision to bring in Marios Matalon, a 186 cm tall guard, is even more surprising. The guard positions have already been covered, and he is hardly going to offer something special.

Panionios will be an even tougher opponent for Trikalla than Kifissia were, and the away team's impotence in attack will jump out more. Coach Flevarakis added how he respects their upcoming opponents:

- They have a terribly agressive backcourt and strong, tall centers which could cause a lot of problems for us. It's up to us to play tough defense and try to make this a low scoring game. We also need to push their centers our of the paint.

That's a lot easier to say than do, and Panionios should set the tempo of the game and easily win it in the end.

Judging by all the circumstances, this should be a light training session for Panionios. The team who are still undefeated this season are playing better with each passing week, and they are especially impressive in the defense, which is their coach Sferopoulos' trademark. Today, they are facing a team of players who only met each other for the first time this summer and will need a lot of time to gel together, which has been evident in their games so far. Even their coach has pointed out they looked really poor in the offense, and that only good defense can help them deal with better opponents. That won't be enough today as they won't be able to stop McCollum and Duvnjak, and they will have no ways to unlock Panionios' defense. The most important aspect of this bet is the rebound game, where Panionios were inferior to all their opponents so far, but they still won those games without trouble. Today they are playing a team that has no real center and whose coach is terrified of Panionios' inside game. Panionios is almost certain to win this rebound battle, and if they put a typically excellent performance on top of that, this win will be expressed by a large margin.