{"id":503016,"date":"2018-12-20T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/we-played-one-of-our-best-defensive-games\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T10:31:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T07:31:01","slug":"we-played-one-of-our-best-defensive-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/we-played-one-of-our-best-defensive-games\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe played one of our best defensive games\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\/xqVzuV7sdA8\" 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;\">\n<div> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">Maccabi\u2019s amazing defensive display throughout the game secured the 79:63 win over Khimki, a win that keeps the playoff fight very much alive. The squad in yellow and blue exploded in third quarter with a 26:11 score from which Khimki never recovered. The yellows will now travel to Kaunas where they will face Zalgiris on Friday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">\u201cI want to thank our fans that supported us today and they were with us throughout the game\u201d, said coach <strong>Giannis Sfairopoulos<\/strong>. \u201cWe saw the legends of Maccabi who won back to back EuroLeague championships that gave us extra power for this game and it was very important for us to participate in their celebration and anniversary. We dominated the game today because we played very good defense. We allowed 31 and 32 points in the halves, and although we played one of our best defensive games so far, I believe that in the first half we were a little nervous and anxious to finish some plays and it cause us to miss some shots, layups, hesitations and turnovers&#8221;.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;After halftime we talked with the players and said to be more concentrated, to be more determined with the ball and this is what happened in the second half and slowly slowly we started to built a double digit difference&#8221;, added the coach. &#8220;The third period was very important because they scored 11 points and we scored the maximum and I believe that this was the key point and till the end we had the lead and won the game easily. Congratulations to the players, now we have back to back games, we will enjoy this win but only for a few hours because from tonight we need to think about our next game against Zalgiris\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">\u201cI think the defense was good at both halves\u201d, said <strong>Scottie Wilbekin<\/strong>. \u201cWe started making more\u00a0 shots in the second and kept the defense up which is important and not easy to do for the whole game. It was great for the fans to see that and I\u2019m glad we were able to win with the legends in the building. We\u2019re taking it one game at a time and unfortunately we lost the last and we\u2019re trying to build, game by game\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">\u201cI felt great tonight\u201d, said <strong>Kendrick Ray<\/strong>. \u201cI just try to come out there bring energy to my team and change the game. It was great playing in front of the legends. We credit our offense to our defense we played a lot of defense in the second half and that opened up our offense for us. We started off little slow but I feel things now are turning around\u201d.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maccabi\u2019s coach Giannis Sfairopoulos on the yellow legends who attended the home game against Khimki: \u201cIt was important for us to participate in their celebration\u201d. Scottie Wilbekin: \u201cI\u2019m glad we were able to win with the legends in the building\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":503012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-503016","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\/503016","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=503016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503020,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503016\/revisions\/503020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503016"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=503016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}