By Amy Samin<\/FONT> If you Google \u201csnatching victory from the jaws of defeat\u201d you\u2019ll get a video of the last seven minutes of Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv\u2019s 66 – 64 victory over Real Madrid Thursday night. The quarterfinals, which will be played as a best of five series, open on March 25th<\/SUP> with Maccabi hosting Partisan at Nokia Arena; the second game will be played at Nokia two days later. \u201cWhoever doesn\u2019t believe in God should come and see a game like this,\u201d declared Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv\u2019s head coach, Pini Gershon<\/B>. \u201cThe first thing I had to do was give them back their faith in themselves,\u201d Gershon said, revealing the secret of the team\u2019s monumental comeback, \u201ceven in the second half, when we allowed them 31 points even with the lousy percentages they were shooting. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t take the lead in the first half because we did what they wanted us to do, but for the last twenty minutes, I told them to do what I said, because if they went it alone we wouldn\u2019t win.\u201d Game MVP Doron Perkins<\/B> said after the game: \u201cYou might not realize it, but this might be our biggest step to the Final Four. Alan Anderson<\/B>, who finished the game with only 8 points said, \u201cWhat a crazy game! Israeli forward Guy Pnini<\/B> was also in high spirits after the game: \u201cWe\u2019ve shown everyone who Maccabi Tel Aviv is, and what we can do. Another player who had an outstanding game, David Bluthenthal<\/B>, said, \u201cWe\u2019re really happy and ready to celebrate. Real Madrid head coach Ettore Messina<\/B> had this to say: \u201cI\u2019m very disappointed. Madrid\u2019s center, Ante Tomic<\/B>, added, \u201cI don\u2019t know how we lost this game.
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The win guarantees Maccabi the home court advantage in the quarterfinals against Partisan Belgrade.
It also delays a meeting with Barcelona, the favorite to win the Euroleague final.<\/FONT>
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The following two games (if needed) will be played in the Serbian capital, while a fifth game, should it be necessary, will be played in Tel Aviv.
If Maccabi wins the series against Partisan, they will head to Paris for the Final Four, which will take place from the 5th<\/SUP> to the 7th<\/SUP> of April.<\/FONT>
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\u201cI\u2019ve had some big wins in my career.
No one remembers Bologna, and this is even bigger than that win.
I hope everyone realizes that we need to keep up all the work we\u2019ve done so far, to get to the Final Four, because that\u2019s a mission that\u2019s beyond our potential.
Obviously, this is a huge win.
Games like this, and all of the criticism we get, are what keep me going and give me the drive to win, because otherwise it\u2019s impossible to win.\u201d<\/FONT>
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I said that if we can keep Real in that area, we can win, because I knew we wouldn\u2019t play as badly as we did in the first half.
In the final minutes we got the ball to Chuck Eidson and did things the right way.
He took the game on himself, which is exactly where I wanted it, because Anderson had turned over a lot of balls, though some of that was my fault.\u201d<\/FONT>
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When asked about the quarterfinals, Gershon responded, \u201cOur chances against Partisan look good.
We need to respect them.
They beat Panathinaikos and Barcelona; it won\u2019t be easy, but we\u2019ve got a chance.\u201d<\/FONT>
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We played with a lot of heart.
We knew that we were making shots; that they were gonna fall.
Everybody played their butts off.\u201d
When asked about the home court advantage against Partisan in the quarterfinals, Perkins replied, \u201cIt\u2019s great.
As you can see, we\u2019re a lot better team at home.
Hopefully, we\u2019ll have that confidence, but they\u2019re a good team, too.
They\u2019re in the Final 8 for a reason, so we can\u2019t just run over them.\u201d<\/FONT>
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We\u2019re on Cloud 9.
It was an amazing win and we\u2019re really happy.\u201d<\/FONT>
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It\u2019s a huge win, tough and sweet.
We\u2019re on Cloud 9.
We\u2019ve gone from being a team that took a lot of criticism to a team that\u2019s number one in the group that was considered the toughest, one we weren\u2019t sure we\u2019d be able to beat, and headed for the quarterfinals.
We even guaranteed our place in the quarterfinals last week.
There\u2019s no greater happiness.\u201d<\/FONT>
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We did the job; we beat Real Madrid, and not just that we did it in front of their home crowd.
I don\u2019t think there\u2019s one crazier than theirs.
We\u2019re looking ahead now, Partisan is a good team, but we know that in situations like this anything can happen; we\u2019ll fight until the last second.\u201d<\/FONT>
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We were in control for most of the game, and it doesn\u2019t make sense that we got to the fourth quarter and just lost our heads.
Maccabi played a great game and they deserve to be congratulated.
The next stage is going to be very tough.
We know very well who Barcelona is, but we\u2019re up to it. When we reach the moment of truth we\u2019ll figure out how to get to the Final Four.\u201d<\/FONT><\/P>
In a month and a half Maccabi Tel Aviv beat us twice, which is crazy.
Now we need to face Barcelona, who we didn\u2019t want to play against at this point.
We\u2019ll do everything possible to make it to the Final Four, but for now we\u2019re more disappointed than ever, especially because this game was already in our pocket.\u201d<\/FONT>
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