Lior Eliyahu was enthusiastic about Thursday night’s game against Alba Berlin, and added, “It was some game.” Head coach Pini Gershon showed less excitement, saying, “It’s impossible to score 120 points in a game, and we still have things to improve.” Newcomer Dee Brown added, “The fans here are unbelievable.”
By Amy Samin
It was a huge victory for Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv, who handed Alba Berlin a crushing defeat, 96 – 65 at Nokia Arena. The next two games (both away) look to be much tougher, at least on paper, but Maccabi will head out on the road with a great deal of confidence and an upbeat attitude after such an impressive victory. In the locker room after the game, the positive charge was tangible.
“It’s impossible to score 120 points in a game, and we still have things to improve,” said Maccabi head coach Pini Gershon after the game. “It’s possible to do even more. They scored 65 points off of us, and it makes it look like we weren’t playing defense at all,” added Gershon. “It’s my job to look for the things that are less good. It took a little while for us to adjust. We played for 20 minutes with a new player who doesn’t know all the plays yet.”
About Dee Brown, Gershon added, “He fit in with the team right away, and he had a great professional start to his career with Maccabi. His shooting surprised me. He played for 21 minutes, and that’s too much. The plan was that he would play 9 – 10 minutes alone, and 7 – 8 minutes with Carlos, without a drop in his production. He can give us what Sharp (team captain Derrick Sharp) gave us a few years ago, in terms of defense. Now we can try and do things we couldn’t have done before. He’s got a resume, and he’s played in a number of places. From here we will only see more things from him.”
Dee Brown, who contributed 11 points in his first game with Maccabi, was enthusiastic about the atmosphere in Nokia Arena and said, “The fans here are just unbelievable. I’m going to play hard every game.” The guard added, “It was a great game, it felt great to be there with the guys. The coaches gave me confidence, and I tried to give my all in the minutes I got.”
Carlos Arroyo said, “Dee Brown fits in perfectly with the team. He’s a player who plays hard, and he brings a lot of energy to the game, which is exactly what we need. We’ve had a year of ups and downs, but you’ve seen what kind of a team we can be.”
Lior Eliyahu summed up yet another solid game on his part, “That was some game. We dominated the whole way, and we were really motivated to finish it with a big lead. We talked about it, that if there was an opportunity to crush them, we’d do it.”
“I don’t think that it was an easy game, but rather that we made it easy for ourselves. We know that the game in Barcelona will be a really tough one; we won’t go there feeling complacent and we won’t let tonight’s game make us overconfident.”
“Tonight’s game was important because first of all we have to protect our home court advantage, but we also have to win at least one away game, and we’re going to do everything possible to make that happen next week in Barcelona.”
“After all the changes we’ve been through this year, now we need to pull together. This is our team, and we want to go as high as we can. At Maccabi, the goal is always to go as high as we can, and the same is true this season.”
Omri Casspi, the second half of the Casspiyahu Show, added, “On their home court, Alba will give trouble to all the teams. We’re heading out to two tough away games in Madrid and Barcelona. If we get a victory in one of those places, our path to the next round is paved.”
D’or Fischer, who has again shown himself to be one of the biggest steals in the Euroleague this season, talked about, what else? Dee Brown, “Dee played great in the minutes he got. He showed that he’s a great shooter, and that he’s got eyes in the back of his head, like Carlos. It was a great game and a real team effort. In Barcelona it will be something totally different. It’s a huge challenge.”
