Head coach David Blatt prefers to move on: “We need to forget about this game and look ahead to Caja Laboral; the series against them is a long one and anything is possible.”
By Amy Samin
About the 82 – 69 loss to Lottomatica Roma, Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv head coach David Blatt said, “There’s not a lot to be said, and I’m not going to make excuses.
We didn’t play well; we didn’t have much energy or focus.
We turned the ball over 21 times, many times for no good reason.
It’s an almost unheard of number for us.
Even when we were in a comfortable position, we kept missing shots, and Roma took advantage of that.
We need to forget this game and move on.”
About Maccabi’s opponent in the quarterfinals, Blatt said, “We know this opponent very well; we played against them twice this season.
They’re a very high quality team, capable of going even higher than where they are right now.
They have a lot of depth, quality, and experience.
It’s definitely going to be a big challenge for us, but it’s a long series and anything is possible.
Caja Laboral has lost more than a game or two this season.
We’re going to do everything we can to win there and move up to the Final Four.”
“None of us played well.
Maybe that happened because the game wasn’t an important one,” speculated Lior Eliyahu.
“We gave them easy shots, we turned the ball over, and we made mistakes.
It’s probably our worst game this season.
I think we’re in good shape, and we won’t fall because of two or three games.”
About Maccabi’s next Euroleague opponent (and incidentally, his former team), Eliyahu said, “Caja is a good team and very dangerous, we beat them once and lost to them once this year.
We’ll start studying them.
It’s going to be a tough series, but I hope we will advance to the Final Four.”
“None of our shots went in, and we struggled the whole game,” said Chuck Eidson.
“We didn’t play well, and we have a big fight on Sunday against Hapoel Jerusalem.
The way we played tonight wouldn’t be enough even in a second-league game in Israel.
We’re embarrassed by our performance tonight.
We’ll do what we need to, but I promise that next time we’ll be a lot stronger than we were here.”
