{"id":500262,"date":"2017-02-01T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/bagatskis-players-are-in-a-good-mood-mekel-we-have-a-deep-roster-players-will-step-up\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T09:31:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T06:31:54","slug":"bagatskis-players-are-in-a-good-mood-mekel-we-have-a-deep-roster-players-will-step-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/bagatskis-players-are-in-a-good-mood-mekel-we-have-a-deep-roster-players-will-step-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Bagatskis: \u201cPlayers are in a good mood\u201d. Mekel: \u201cWe have a deep roster, players will step up\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"responsive-video-container\" style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; margin-bottom: 20px;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rHk0XlOrS5U\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div>\n<div> \t\tOn Sunday Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv will head to Jerusalem for a big matchup against the rivals Hapoel, currently seeded 3rd with a 10 \u2013 7 record in the Israeli league, compared to Maccabi\u2019s 13 \u2013 3 record at the number 1 spot in the standings. But before that, Maccabi will play Brose Bamberg in Germany in round 21 of the Euroleague hoping to avenge a big home loss, 70 \u2013 85 in the teams\u2019 previous encounter.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div> \t\t\u00a0<\/div>\n<div> \t\tHead coach, Ainars Bagatskis: &#8220;Most important to me is that in practice the last two days players were in a good mood, were aggressive. I, as the coach, can only take responsibility for what happens in the gym, not outside of it. I&#8217;m disappointed that we just lost a good professional player in Sonny, as I think in my time here we found the right balance with him. But we can&#8217;t control that. Bamberg has not 1 or 2 stars &#8211; it&#8217;s a really, really good team, playing together for 4 years. They have leaders in every position. The star of the team is the team&#8221;.<\/div>\n<div> \t\t\u00a0<\/div>\n<div> \t\tGal Mekel: &#8220;In a shorter rotation players will need to produce extra, but sometimes a shorter rotation is good with more minutes and confidence. We&#8217;re going to play in a tough place against a well-coached team that played great in the first game in Tel Aviv.<\/div>\n<div> \t\t\u00a0<\/div>\n<div> \t\tOur mentality right now is &#8220;the show must go on&#8221;. We&#8217;re professionals. There are things you can&#8217;t do as a player in any sport, especially not in a club at such a high level like us. Sonny was one of our main players but it&#8217;s a deep position in our team and I\u2019m sure others will step up&#8221;.<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div> \t\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just before heading to Germany to play Bamberg in the Euroleague, watch the Latvian coach and the point guard reflect on the situation without Sonny Weems. Bagatskis: \u201cWe lost a good professional\u201d. Mekel: \u201cHe was a key player but the show must go on\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":473166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-500262","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\/500262","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=500262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500263,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500262\/revisions\/500263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500262"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=500262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}