{"id":135907,"date":"2025-09-11T19:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T19:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/135907\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T19:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T19:10:08","slug":"spanoulis-replies-to-ataman-about-giannis-theyre-calling-him-for-more-offensive-fouls-than-he-commits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/135907\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanoulis replies to Ataman about Giannis: “They’re calling him for more offensive fouls than he commits”"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michalis Gioulenoglou\/ info@eurohoops.net<\/a><\/p>\n

Riga, Latvia \u2013 Turkish national team coach Ergin Ataman said that Giannis Antetokounmpo is not called for the offensive fouls he makes<\/a>,\u00a0and Greek national team coach Vassilis Spanoulis doubled down on his opinion.<\/p>\n

When he was asked about Ataman\u2019s comment, Spanoulis replied with a smile.<\/p>\n

As he said, commenting on his own statements in the group stage about Giannis not getting equal treatment with other stars: \u201cOkay, we expected this from coach Ataman. Ataman is a great coach. He\u2019s been doing this for many years, trying to influence people\u2019s minds. I didn\u2019t say it to influence anyone. I said it because it\u2019s the reality. Let\u2019s all sit down together and watch the games and see how many fouls Giannis doesn\u2019t get, how many are unsportsmanlike, and how many offensive ones he\u2019s made\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to Spanoulis, even the offensive fouls called so far on Giannis are debatable: \u201cI don\u2019t think he is getting away with offensive fouls. They\u2019ve also given him a lot of charges, which were not the right calls. We also saw one against Spain that wasn\u2019t because the defender was inside the semi-circle line, and they called it offensive, and it was very crucial at that moment of the game.\u00a0So, I think they\u2019re calling more offensive fouls on him and not giving him the fouls he should be given, considering the way he plays. Because Giannis is a very aggressive player, who goes to the basket, and two or three players keep pulling his hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking to the Turkish media, coach Spanoulis also admitted to being flattered by the comments made by coach Ataman about him.<\/p>\n

As he said: \u201cI respect coach Ataman, we have a very good relationship, we have had many conversations, and I want to thank him publicly for the good words he said to me\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Greece will face Turkey on Friday (12\/9) at 20.00 CET for a ticket to the Eurobasket 2025 Final.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: FIBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Michalis Gioulenoglou\/ info@eurohoops.net Riga, Latvia \u2013 Turkish national team coach Ergin Ataman said that Giannis Antetokounmpo is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-135907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}