ImageJosh Childress showed real character last night playing his heart out against Panathinaikos when a couple of days before he was informed of his father's death. After the game Childress spoke about it in the press conference in tears and will leave for USA tomorrow.

Childress will stay in USA for about a week as his father's funeral is scheduled for next Saturday. So inevitably he will miss Olympiacos' away Euroleague game against Orleans and the domestic away game against Ilysiakos. He will return in Olympiacos' home Euroleague game against Unicaja Malaga.

Josh Childress stated about his personal tragedy: "I want to thank my coach, teammates and everyone in Olympiacos. This is a difficult time for me but they all stood by me. I'm sure that my father is smiling right now for me and my team. I want to thank everyone." and proceeded to comment on the game itself: "Tonight was a tough game for our team, Panathinaikos is a great team but we played with fire, with intensity and we really controlled the tempo [of the game] and we did a really good job. Time after time they [Panathinaikos] got rebounds, easy layups but we fought back, we kept fighting and came out with the win. I'm proud of our team for fighting for 40 minutes."

Josh Childress' tears (video courtesy of RedPlanet )

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