After his team’s 84 – 73 win over Hapoel Jerusalem at Malha Arena, Blatt said, “Every time you win a game in a difficult atmosphere, you move forward. My players come to win. They don’t care about the crowd or playing an away game.”
By Amy Samin
In response to a question about his facial expression, Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv’s head coach David Blatt replied, “I’m happy.
You don’t always have to smile when you’re happy.
My players come to win; they don’t care about the crowd, and they don’t care if it’s an away game or a home game.
There are things we could have done better, and my job is to think about those things as we move forward.
After every victory, they say it wasn’t a real test for us, but it was.
Every time you win and overcome such a difficult atmosphere, you move forward.”
“There’s no shame in the fact that Sofo is one of our leading players,” said Blatt in response to a comment about Maccabi’s dependence on the Greek center, Sofoklis Schortsanitis.
“When Kobe isn’t on the court, the Lakers also don’t look as good.
I’m pleased with what Mačvan did today, and also with the fact that we played excellent defense.” When asked if he was nervous about the lottery for the Euroleague Top 16 (which takes place 4 January), Blatt said, “We all know that there’s going to be a lottery and that it’s important, but we’ve already done our part.
We finished the first round in first place, and the rest is up to God.”
Doron Perkins, who was outstanding with 22 points, said briefly, “It’s a big win, but we can’t celebrate too much because it’s just another win.”
Tal Burstein concluded, “It was a tough came, we knew Jerusalem wouldn’t be complacent and we fought for every ball.
For them, every game against us is a war.
We controlled the game from the beginning.
We had too many turnovers, but we made up for that with good defense and with drives to the basket.”
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