“It’s a tough loss, but we will keep on fighting”

Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv couldn’t find a rhythm on Thursday night on one of their weaker nights of the season, dropping to Panathinaikos 63:81 in Athens. The Israeli champions managed to delete an 18 point Green advantage, but a poor fourth-quarter determined the outcome lowering the Yellow & Blue record to 11 wins and 16 losses.

After last week’s victory over Valencia, the Yellow & Blue hoped to build a winning streak, but they didn’t have solutions for the Greek squad throughout most of the contest. Scottie Wilbekin was the only Maccabi scorer who exceeded double figures finishing the night with 14 points. Giannis Sfairopoulos’s unit needs to overcome the defeat quickly as Saturday they host Ness Ziona in the Israeli Winner League.

“I want to congratulate Panathinaikos for the win, as they played better for most of the game”, Said Maccabi’s head coach Giannis Sfairopoulos after the loss. “We didn’t start or finish the game well, while in the second and third periods, we played more aggressively on defense, which led to stops and scores in the open court. We came back to 3 points, but at that point, Pao showed their quality as we couldn’t hit shots for two to three minutes, which concluded the game in the end”.

Ante Zizic, who finished the night with 9 points and 8 rebounds, expressed his thoughts about what didn’t go well in Athens: “We weren’t aggressive for all 40 minutes like we should be. We were good in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, but we couldn’t keep it going into the 4th, coming out flat in the final minutes. It’s a tough loss, but we will keep on fighting and playing with pride for each and every game”.

“Its a tough loss for us tonight”, added John DiBartolomeo, “We couldn’t excute like we wanted, but inspite of that we fought. We came close and we were 3 points behind going into the 4th quarter with the momentum on our side, but we were not able to keep pushing”.