Rick Pitino: Panathinaikos Fans 'Selfish' for Smoking, Lighting Flares at Games

Panathinaikos head coach Rick Pitino had some strong words for fans who have taken to smoking and setting off flares during the team's games. 

Per Derek Gatopoulos of the Associated Press, Pitino addressed the situation involving "self-centered and selfish" people following Panathinaikos' playoff victory over Peristeri Wednesday night:

"I smoke cigars on a golf course, but there's nobody else around. But you're in an arena and 10,000 are smoking and the players are choking. So, sooner or later, you've got to say: 'Hey man, we're at an athletic event and I'm going to discipline myself and we'll wait until halftime. And I'm going to go out and blow my brains out with cigarettes.' That's your option. But not when there are athletes and there are little kids who want to come to the game. ... But they don't care about young people and the athletes who are breathing it in.''

Pitino has previously praised the Panathinaikos B.C. crowds since being hired last December.

After a victory over CSKA Moscow in his debut, Pitino told reporters the atmosphere in the arena "reminded [him] of Kentucky. ... Because I've always felt that in Kentucky basketball is a religion, and the fans tonight motivated us to play that type of defense."

Upon seeing flares being lit during Wednesday's game, Pitino said "somebody is going to get burned and somebody is going to get hurt" and called it "nonsense."

Greece adopted a law banning smoking in public places in 2008, but Sarantis Michalopoulos of EurActiv.com reported in January 2018 that a "vast majority" of entertainment venues, like bars and restaurants, continue to allow smokers in as much as "40 percent of the total area of the premises."

Pitino and Panathinaikos will attempt to navigate around the raucousness in the stands when they host Peristeri in Game 2 of their playoff series at Olympic Indoor Hall on June 1.