The Israeli champions summarized the defeat to the northern squad in the domestic league. Sfairopoulos: “This is a good lesson for us, we need to learn how to play these types of games”. Blayzer: “We were always short, half a step too late”
Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv’s return to the domestic league didn’t go as planned, experiencing a 70:79 defeat to Hapoel Gilboa/Galil in Menora Mivtachim Arena, marking their second loss this season in the Israeli league. Ante Zizic’s 23 points and 9 rebounds weren’t quite enough, as the Yellow & Blue don’t have much time to grieve as their next assignment comes on Sunday against Hapoel Tel Aviv in Shlomo Group Arena.
“I want to congratulate Gilboa/Galil on their win and the way they played today. They showed how much they wanted to beat us from the first moment, and we weren’t ready to play a tough game, although we knew they are a formidable team”, Said head coach Giannis Sfairopoulos after the loss. “We weren’t good offensively throughout the whole game shooting only 17% from outside as most of them were open, which means we weren’t ready mentally to execute better”.
“We didn’t read the game well and didn’t play together, which is why we played like that. This is a good lesson for us, we need to learn from it how to be prepared and how to play these types of games”.
Oz Blayzer explained what didn’t work well today: “We lacked energy, defensively we were alright, we could have played better and offensively, we were always short, half a step too late. On the other end, they played with high intensity, energy while we didn’t complete our tasks. We need to learn from this game, put it behind us because we have a derby match on Sunday and understand that we can lose to anyone if we don’t come with the right energy against any team”.
