{"id":30596,"date":"2011-02-04T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blatt-our-opponents-arent-weak-were-strong\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T08:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T05:37:21","slug":"blatt-our-opponents-arent-weak-were-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/blatt-our-opponents-arent-weak-were-strong\/","title":{"rendered":"Blatt: \u201cOur opponents aren\u2019t weak; we\u2019re strong\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Amy Samin<\/FONT>

<\/P>

\u201cWe talked about the importance of playing for the full forty minutes and giving our all from the first minute,\u201d said Maccabi\u2019s head coach David Blatt<\/B> after the win.
\u201cWe talked about not letting up and about being patient.
The truth is, if we had let up they would have come back and it would have ended with a smaller point difference.
We didn\u2019t let them do that because the point difference is very important.\u201d<\/FONT>

<\/P>

\u201cOur fans deserve to enjoy the game,\u201d the coach added.
\u201cI salute the guys; I demand a lot from them and every time, they give their all.
People might say that our opponents are weak, but I say that we are strong.\u201d
When asked about Barcelona, Blatt said, \u201cI don\u2019t want to think about Barcelona yet.
First we need to make sure we\u2019re in a position to advance to the next level, then we\u2019ll fight for first place.\u201d<\/FONT>

<\/P>

\u201cI think that Lior (Eliyahu) is one of the best players in his position in Europe, and it\u2019s great that the management brought him back,\u201d complimented the coach at the press conference after the game.
\u201cHe needs to keep working so that everyone can have the pleasure of seeing an Israeli player at the very highest levels.
We did an excellent job on defense, but I saw a few mistakes and we\u2019ll fix them.
The players will hear about them and we\u2019ll work on them in practice, because we don\u2019t want to stop where we are now.\u201d<\/FONT><\/P>

\"\"<\/P>

\u201cWe will continue to be humble and professional, and leave it to other people to do the talking,\u201d said Blatt in conclusion.
\u201cLast year the Euroleague was a lot weaker.
I know there are teams that are at least at our level.
We have a lot of confidence on our home court and for that reason we can get huge wins like this one.
In away games, I\u2019d take a one point victory.\u201d<\/FONT>

<\/P>

\u201cJust because we won by a lot of points doesn\u2019t mean it was an easy game.
We worked really hard for that point difference,\u201d said Lior Eliyahu<\/B>.
\u201cWe did a great job from the start of the first quarter.
We knew how to jump to a big lead at the beginning, and we just need to keep up the passion.
I don\u2019t want to talk about first place yet, we have two tough away games coming up, and the game in Ljubljana will be a completely different story.
There\u2019s also the cup games coming up next week and those are very important.\u201d<\/FONT>

<\/P>

Doron Perkins<\/B> said, \u201cOur intensity is what\u2019s making the difference.
It makes everything easier.
We have a really athletic team and we\u2019re making the most of that.
I\u2019m not surprised, because every time we open strong it goes this way.
Just when we get off to a hesitant start, we have problems.
We\u2019re going to try to play the same way in the away games.
If we play our kind of game, we can wear them out.\u201d<\/FONT><\/P>

\"\"<\/P>

www.samintranslations.com<\/U><\/FONT><\/A> <\/FONT><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv\u2019s 104 \u2013 67 win over Union Olimpija Ljubljana is its second straight in the Top 16. Eliyahu: \u201cWe need to keep up the level of passion.\u201d Pargo: \u201cWe\u2019re not thinking about Barcelona yet.\u201d Perkins: \u201cOur intensity is what\u2019s making the difference.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-30596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495936,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30596\/revisions\/495936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30596"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=30596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}