{"id":31016,"date":"2011-05-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-18T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/ready-for-the-final-four-maccabi-defeats-spirou-basket-87-83\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T08:38:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T05:38:20","slug":"ready-for-the-final-four-maccabi-defeats-spirou-basket-87-83","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/ready-for-the-final-four-maccabi-defeats-spirou-basket-87-83\/","title":{"rendered":"Ready for the Final Four: Maccabi Defeats Spirou Basket 87 \u2013 83"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Amy Samin<\/FONT>
<\/P>

Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv defeated Belgian champion Spirou Basket Charleroi 87 \u2013 83 in a friendly game held in Belgium on Wednesday. Sofoklis Schortsanitis scored 21 points and Jeremy Pargo had 16. Tal Burstein remained at home in Israel with his pregnant wife.<\/FONT>
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Blatt\u2019s starting five were Pargo, David Blu, Chuck Eidson, Guy Pnini and Sofo. The Belgians played well in the first quarter, and the period ended with the home team leading 22 \u2013 17<\/B>. Sofo and Pargo were the lynchpins in Maccabi\u2019s return to the game, and three minutes into the second quarter the visitors had taken a 28 \u2013 26 lead; by halftime the score was 43 \u2013 37<\/B>, Maccabi.<\/FONT>
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Charleroi stayed close, and by the end of the third period were trailing by only three, 61 \u2013 58<\/B>. Maccabi protected their lead in the final period, and led by a score of 80 \u2013 74 with two minutes left in the game. The Belgians started to stage a comeback, but Eidson ensured they wouldn\u2019t take the win, and Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv returned home with an 87 \u2013 83<\/B> victory over Spirou Basket Charleroi.<\/FONT>
<\/P>

Box Score<\/U><\/B>:<\/FONT><\/P>

Maccabi<\/B>: Schortsanitis 21 points; Pargo 16 points; Eidson 14 points; Eliyahu 10 points; Ma\u010dvan 9 points; Pnini 6 points; Blu and Sharp 4 points each; Hendrix 3 points.<\/FONT>
<\/P>

After the game, Maccabi head coach David Blatt<\/B> said, \u201cWe achieved the goal we had for this trip: two good practices plus a tough game. We arrived here feeling relaxed, which enabled us to focus on the very important mission we have before us next week \u2013 to bring the championship back to Maccabi. The guys are taking this mission very seriously, and this trip is a direct continuation of the good practices we\u2019ve had recently.\u201d<\/FONT>
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\u201cWe played well against a good home team that came into this game with a lot of excitement, determined to prove themselves against the second best team in the Euroleague. It was a tough but clean game. The win didn\u2019t come easily, and that\u2019s what I wanted. We were able to practice some things in preparation for the Israeli Final Four, and also to divide up the playing time well. It\u2019s important to know how to play, and how to win, and we did that. We\u2019re leaving here with a very good feeling.\u201d<\/FONT>

<\/P>

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

Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv defeated Belgian champion Spirou Basket Charleroi 87 \u2013 83 in a friendly game held in Belgium on Wednesday that served as part of Maccabi\u2019s preparation for the Israeli Final Four, to be held May 24 and 26 (Photo: spiroubasket.com).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-31016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-54"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31016","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=31016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":496120,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31016\/revisions\/496120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31016"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=31016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}