Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv celebrated a thrilling come-from-behind 101-99 victory over Armani Milan, and is already looking ahead to Game 2 on Friday. Pnini: “We want to come back home with a 2-0 advantage in the series.”
By Amy Samin
Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv’s head coach David Blatt said after the game, “This was definitely one of the great games, a game that will go into the pantheon of Maccabi. They pay me and keep me around so that I can do my part. What makes a good coach are players who execute the plays.”
“In the end, the players did everything we wanted and asked of them. If it weren’t for the execution on the part of the players, we wouldn’t be talking like this. That was my message in the time out – don’t give up. I told them we could still win, but my thought was more that we wouldn’t give up. Now we’re going to try to come back on Friday and do it again.”
Club chairman Shimon Mizrahi said with a smile, “To come back from 12 points down in an away game shows character and decisiveness. I can only say ‘great job’ to the players and to the coaching staff, who prepared the players extremely well. Basketball is a game of forty minutes, and it’s not over until it’s over. Tonight it ended in the best way possible. Tyrese [Rice] is a player with a lot of ability, and he showed it tonight. I’m happy for him and for the team.”
Ricky Hickman, who scored 26 points, said: “It was a good game. I think we did a great job of showing character. Everybody gave us something. I knew that we had the chance to win, I just felt that they would get a little nervous if we kept the game close, and they ended up missing free throws and we capitalized.”
Team captain Guy Pnini noted: “We didn’t believe we would win. Tonight we made one of the greatest comebacks in history. The atmosphere here was very supportive of the home team, and we didn’t play all that well for three quarters, but in the end we did it. We’ve done something great. Every single one of us is a winner. We want to come back home with a 2-0 advantage in the series. This was one small step. There are two more victories we have to get.”
Tyrese Rice, who contributed 17 points – many of them in money time – added: “We’re fighting hard for it. This is why we played until the end of the game. The whole game can change in a minute. One foul, one intentional foul, down by two points, slow the game down… They had the clock malfunctioning… All this stuff matters in a game like this, and we took away some momentum, made free throws, made shots at the end, and that’s just how it happened.”
