Game MVP Sofoklis Schortsanitis summed things up: “The most important thing when somebody goes down is how fast he is getting back up.” David Blatt: “We played a fantastic game, that’s how it is when you get a chance to sleep.”
By Amy Samin
“This is what happens when we have three days to prepare and don’t play back-to-back games,” said Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv’s head coach David Blatt after Thursday night’s win against EA7 Emporio Armani Milano. “We had a chance to let the guys rest. It was an exceptional game; we played fantastic.”
In addition to complementing the team as a whole, the coach singled out a couple of players: “We got an amazing game from Sofo and Farmar. Last season Sofo was named to the All-Euroleague First Team, and tonight he played like an All-Euroleague starter. He’s a very special guy, and today was just one of those days when things went his way and he gave us one of his best performances ever in the Euroleague.” As for Farmar, Blatt noted: “When Farmar has his head in the game, obviously our team looks different. We needed to come back after that loss [on Sunday]. That’s the way it works in Maccabi, and we responded as we should.”
Maccabi has taken more than a little criticism in the press this season on the subject of rebounding. In Thursday’s game against Armani Milano Maccabi out-rebounded their opponent 41 to 22, and the coach also had a few words to say about that: “We work on rebounding constantly and we’ve improved significantly. As I’ve said before, when we have time to rest things improve.” Blatt responded to a question about what Maccabi did to win this game [after losing by seven points in their first meeting with Milano]. “Milano is deadly on offense, and I think we threw them completely off their game. If you can do that, you’ll win the game. We played this game to win, and to win by more than seven points; we accomplished both.”
Game MVP Sofoklis Schortsanitis (28 points): “It was a good game, and one that we had to win. The most important thing is when somebody goes down, how fast is he getting back up, and today we proved that we’re a team that gets up fast and remembers where we came from, and that’s what we did today.” When asked how it was playing against fellow Greek Ioannis Bourousis, Sofo replied, “It was a great matchup, and it was fun to play against him. He’s a good friend, but when you’re on the court the thing that matters is winning.”
Jordan Farmar (21 points): “In order to win you have to make your shots. We fought against injuries and illness, and everyone gave everything they had. We know how hard on ourselves we are. We want to be successful, we put ourselves in a situation and we expect to win every game we play, in all three leagues that we’re playing in. We understand the importance of every game and this one tonight, too.”
Yogev Ohayon, who scored four points and made five assists, added: “I’m happy the shots went in tonight. This game was a really important one for us, not only to make up for the loss on Sunday but also for the rest of the season. I’m happy that everyone played with their hearts, and that was expressed in the result. We were first on every ball.”
