{"id":501061,"date":"2017-12-07T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/spahija-im-not-happy-with-our-defense-but-i-cant-complain\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T09:48:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T06:48:38","slug":"spahija-im-not-happy-with-our-defense-but-i-cant-complain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/spahija-im-not-happy-with-our-defense-but-i-cant-complain\/","title":{"rendered":"Spahija: &#8220;I&#8217;m not happy with our defense, but I can&#8217;t complain"},"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\/d92FtivWc7I\" 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 style=\"direction: ltr;\"> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv continued its momentum as the team won its third game in a row (EuroLeague and domestic), after surviving a comeback by Valencia.<\/span> <\/div>\n<div style=\"direction: ltr;\"> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">&#8220;What made the difference was that we outscored <\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">them<\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">&#8221; said coach Spahija, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t like the fact we allowed them to score so much, but it&#8217;s the EuroLeague, there are good teams that prepper for us just like we&#8217;re preparing to them. We scored 94 points tonight which is not easy, but we need to improve on <\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">defense<\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">. The end of the game is unacceptable to me, but we are a new team and we will learn from this&#8221;. Coach Spahija also addressed the issues regarding DeShaun not scoring enough: &#8220;I don&#8217;t pay attention to it as long as he&#8217;s contributing to the team, maybe the media has a problem with it I don&#8217;t. We have a lot of players on the roster that were not fully fit today, <\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">however<\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"> they will be for the upcoming game versus Holon.&#8221;<\/span> <\/div>\n<div style=\"direction: ltr;\"> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">Pierre Jackson: &#8220;I hope that our <\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">specialty<\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"> would be just to win rather than to win close games. The fans were important tonight they pushed us for the win. Valencia <\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">have<\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"> put the pressure at the end but we managed to remain focused&#8221;.<\/span> <\/div>\n<div style=\"direction: ltr;\"> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">DeShaun Thomas: &#8220;It was a dramatic finish, they pressured us at the end, but we withstand it as a team and got the win. We have some players that <\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">knows<\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"> how <\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">deal<\/span><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"> and to react in such situations. I felt good personally, I&#8217;m always ready to contribute to the team in any aspect needed and not just in point. Every team in Israel wants to defeat us, so we&#8217;d have to come more focused to our next game&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maccabi&#8217;s head coach summarized the win over Valencia and talked mostly D: &#8220;The end of the game is unacceptable to me, but we are a new team and we will learn from this&#8221;. Pierre Jackson: &#8220;The fans were important tonight and they pushed us for the win&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":501058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-501061","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\/501061","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=501061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":501064,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501061\/revisions\/501064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501061"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=501061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}