The mood in Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv is way up after their 100 – 77 victory over Maccabi Offici Rishon Lezion, which puts them into the championship final on Thursday. Blatt: “The game was already over after two and a half quarters.”
By Amy Samin
“The game was already over after two and a half quarters; after that we focused on giving our central players some rest,” said head coach David Blatt after the game. “We had a few mediocre minutes, but by then the game was over, and you can’t ask for too much. Our guys are still hungry, and there’s nothing like a hungry animal.”
When asked about the things Rishon Lezion were saying before the game, Blatt replied, “I decided to take the high road and ignore it. We don’t care about doing the talking; we care about playing the game. Rishon is a good team; they eliminated Bnei Hasharon to get here, and I congratulate them on that.” When asked which opponent he prefers for the final, the coach responded, “I don’t know who will win the second semi-final game. It’s going to be a good game between two teams with a similar playing style.”
Jeremy Pargo, who led all scorers for Maccabi, said, “We had a lot of energy.” When asked who he’d like to face on Thursday in the final, Pargo said, “It doesn’t matter. We’ve seen both teams, and both teams have seen us. We have to come out and win and play hard no matter who we play against. They both have a lot of players that can do a lot of different things and nothing’s going to be easy, so we have to come out and play hard.”
Lior Eliyahu, who last year won the Spanish championship, added, “We started the game well, just like we wanted. That’s also where we ended it; we knew they wouldn’t be able to come back from a score like that against us.” When asked about all the talk that went on before the game, the forward said, “They can say anything they like. The Final Four was established to put pressure on us, and in this first game we withstood the pressure. I hope we’ll do the same in the final. If we play like we did today, we’ll win.”
Guy Pnini said, “If we play our game, obviously we can beat any team. We need to finish this great season we’ve had with a good taste in our mouths. We didn’t really pay much attention to the things they were saying in Rishon Lezion, because we couldn’t tell if they were serious or not. We just focused on ourselves and prepared very well.”
“We wanted to open with strong defense, and I’m happy it worked,” David Blu remarked. “The guys came off the bench and really put on a show. When we demonstrate that much ability, it’s really hard to beat us. We were really focused and that was the key to our win. I don’t see a situation in which we wouldn’t win on Thursday. It’s going to be exciting.”
Richard Hendrix added, “We prepared well this last week, and it was nice to see how it paid off for us. The final’s going to be a good game; I just hope we bring the same intensity that we’ve had up until now.”
