Gershon: “We’ll do whatever it takes to keep the title.”

By Amy Samin

Maccabi wasn’t so far from elimination before the Final Four, but when they cut loose, they really cut loose.
Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv advanced to the Final of the Israeli Super League Tuesday night thanks to an overwhelming 104 – 78 victory over Barak Netanya.
In Thursday night’s Final, Maccabi will face Oded Katash’s Gilboa/Galil in a fight for the title.
Maccabi will come to the game 5,000 shekels lighter in pocket after the team was fined for Pini Gershon’s late appearance at the press conference following Tuesday’s game.

Immediately after the game, Pini Gershon said, “I’ll take the first ten minutes of the game; after that, it was no contest.
We played like we did all year.
Sometimes it’s more successful, sometimes less.
We’ve got two days to prepare for the game against Gilboa/Galil, and we’ll do whatever it takes to keep the title.”

“We started the game the way we’ve played all season – right, smart and aggressive,” said Guy Pnini.
“It’s the Final Four; we don’t need anything extra to get fired up.
We tried to focus on basketball and not on what people were saying before the game.
We did our jobs like we should.”
When asked if Maccabi had saved anything to use against Gilboa/Galil on Thursday, the forward answered, “What?
You didn’t see the second half?”

Captain Derrick Sharp, who got lots of playing time Tuesday night, said, “We need to bring the same focus and concentration to the Final.
Our game is mostly mental.
I do what needs to be done.
If I go into the game, I do my job.
What matters to me is not if I play or not, but that Maccabi wins.”

Maccabi forward Guy Pnini was pleased with the team’s advance to the Final: “It’s a great feeling.
We did what we needed to do right from the start.
In the first half we returned to our usual good game and played patiently.”

“I just want to say to Netanya: good for you.
We’ve got one game left, the championship game, and I hope we do the job.
We’ll come ready to the Final, like we did today.
On Thursday there will be a great atmosphere here; there’s a great team coming to play against us.”

Maccabi’s point guard, Andrew Wisniewski said, “We had a great game.
We were really focused.
We made our shots from outside and from the foul line.
We have a game on Thursday and we need to be focused; and we need to stay focused for the whole game.”

Yaniv Green added, “We knew about the story of the officials, and the whole thing about the bench, but we didn’t care about those things, just how we would play the game.
Gilboa/Galil is a really fast team and we need to be ready for that.
They’re also a shorter team than Netanya and we need to do the match-ups.”

Netanya’s point guard, Shmulik Brener, was disappointed with the night’s outcome: “This was not the result we’d hoped for; we expected our game to be better.
We’re very disappointed.
The start of the game really hurt us; they were very sharp, they ran more and it was very disheartening.
They had incredible percentages from three point range and really got to us on offensive rebounds.”

Brener added: “We’re a much better team than what we looked like tonight, and it’s kind of a shame that this is how we’re ending the season.
We’ve had a great season, and I hope that on Thursday we’ll finish it with a better taste in our mouths.
We were thrown for a loop by a tough blow and it’s hard to bounce back from it.
That’s what happened to us tonight.
This was just one specific game and it doesn’t reflect how we played all season long.”

Head coach of Barak Netanya, Arik Alfasi said, “I expected that we’d play better, and that we’d put up more of a fight for more than a quarter or a half.
Good for Maccabi; they deserve the win.
We lost the game in the first half, maybe even in the first quarter.
Maybe those are the differences in the levels.
We had an amazing season even though today we didn’t look good.
We need to take the good things from the season.
We also need to come and win the game for third place.”

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