Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv’s head coach said after Thursday night’s victory: “We’re far from being perfect, but the players gave it their all. It’s an important win for the future.”
By Amy Samin
“For a while now we’ve been playing outstanding defense, and we get better from day to day,” said Maccabi’s head coach David Blatt after the game.
“The truth is, our percentages from the field were good.
We ran the shot clock down and stopped them on defense, which slowed the game down.
The guys are playing together, coming in and putting their hearts into the game.”
“I’ve heard from people how much they love this team, because they can see the effort and the cohesion between the players; it’s something that hasn’t been seen in Maccabi for a while.
Sure, we’re a long way from perfect, but our hearts are in the right place and I think that counts for a lot.
It’s an important win for the future.”
The Pionir Arena gives a strong home-court advantage.
It’s 8,000 fans who sound like 30,000.
We were very aggressive and took the sting out of the crowd.
We did the things we were supposed to do, and I’m satisfied.”
Jeremy Pargo, who was top scorer with 17 points, added, “I don’t think you need to tell me ‘Welcome to the Euroleague’ because I think I’ve played well up until now.
Games are always made up of runs; we dominated the rhythm of the game from the first second.
We surprised them, and it could be there were a few down times during the game. In the end, the important thing is that we won.
Other things, like the crowd we play in front of, don’t really matter; we just have to play well.
It was a great win.”
Lior Eliyahu, who also had an excellent game, said: “We got off to a great start, and took control of the game for the entire 40 minutes.
Yes, there were some downs in the game, but you can attribute those to the crowd here.
The important thing is to start off strong and keep it up for the entire game.
All in all, we had a great game defensively and things went the way they were supposed to.
The thing that made the most difference was our dominating on rebounds, making smart decisions, and playing great defense.
But hold off on the compliments, because we’re just getting started.”
When asked about the game, Doron Perkins concluded: “You can’t really call it a ‘war’ because we played against a new team, not the same one from last year.
It’s a big win for us, we played great defense and controlled almost the whole game.
We didn’t let them take control of the momentum.
It gives us encouragement for the future.”
