Maccabi’s head coach was pleased with his team, but not with the third quarter: “We should be happy with the three wonderful quarters we had and take a close look at what went wrong to minimize damage in the future.”
By Amy Samin
“The truth is, I want to smile and be happy, but I’m not pleased,” said David Blatt after the game.
“The lapse we had in the third quarter shouldn’t have happened.
We’re a young team and need some time.
We’re not going to be great every minute of every game, it’s just not possible.
It’s troubling and annoying, but we should be happy with the three wonderful quarters we had and take a close look at what went wrong to minimize damage in the future.”
The coach also addressed the disappointing game last week against Vitoria.
“I said before the game against Caja Laboral that I felt we were ready, but apparently I was wrong.
We showed a lot of heart tonight; that will be our way this year.
We faced a big challenge, but we’re a good team.”
The game’s MVP, Sofoklis Schortsanitis, said, “We need to play well for forty minutes.
We played well in the first quarter and set the tone for the rest of the game.
We didn’t want to disappoint the fans.
We have a lot of talent.
It wasn’t an easy game, and the most important thing is that we played hard.
We came and showed we were serious.
I’m happy that Coach and my teammates trust me.
Maccabi fans are great.”
Doron Perkins added, “We learned from our first game.
We came out with a lot of energy, and the first quarter was the most important. There’s a big difference between playing with Sofo on the court and without him.
We succeeded in both running the ball and getting the ball to him under the basket.
A good team needs to know how to do everything.”
Jeremy Pargo: “I’ve felt comfortable ever since coming to Maccabi and nothing changed that, not in Vitoria and not tonight.
That’s how it is in basketball; everyone makes some mistakes.
We weren’t ready for the last game, but tonight we implemented our game plan.
The loss in Vitoria made the difference, everyone wanted to make things right.
We were down, but now we’re back.
I hope we’ll continue like this.”
Tal Burstein: “This time we started strong and were focused.
We knew what we wanted to do, we played good defense, and I’m happy we’ve improved from last time.
That playing at home gives you confidence isn’t a cliché, it’s the truth.
The fact that we played at Nokia with such a supportive crowd really helped us.
We said at the start of the season that from game to game we’ll keep getting better.
Last week we played against one of the strongest teams in Europe.
Tonight we already looked a lot better.
We’re going to keep doing our thing and hope that we keep on winning.”
Zalgiris head coach Aco Petrovic said, “Maccabi deserved the win.
I thought we were well-prepared for the game but we got off to a bad start.
We lost the game in the first half, when we were down by 14 points.
It would have been very hard to win this game with such a great atmosphere and against such a good team.”
