{"id":503828,"date":"2019-05-27T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/were-in-a-great-position\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T10:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T07:52:17","slug":"were-in-a-great-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/were-in-a-great-position\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We&#8217;re in a great position&#8221;"},"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\/wwk7xdeeEkY\" 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;\">Wanting to take the 2:0 lead in their best of five playoffs series, Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv faced Hapoel Tel Aviv on the road. Just like the previous derby the yellows went off to a great start taking the taking the early lead, the reds reacted and the game became an extremely close heavyweight bout with the scoreboard showing 57:57 after three quarters; In the fourth the yellows exploded on both ends of the floor outscoring their archrivals 28:15 to secure the 72:85 away win and the 2:0 lead in the series. The squad of coach Sfairopoulos will look to lock their Israeli final four on Thursday (21:00, local) where they will host Hapoel for game three in the series.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Maccabi&#8217;s head coach <strong>Giannis Sfairopoulos<\/strong> explained the differences between the first and the second half: &#8220;In the first half we played in Hapoel&#8217;s rhythm and we tried too hard to go to the basket. In both halves we were good on defense, we improved on offense; we spread the floor and moved the ball better. We knew that Hapoel will come to fight and we were prepared mentally&#8221;.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">When asked what helped them made the run in the fourth quarter <strong>Scottie Wilbekin<\/strong> replied: &#8220;Just sticking to it&#8221;. Scottie who led the Maccabi offense with 19 points also added: &#8220;We&#8217;re in a great position on the road and in the playoffs, we were in the game and up for most of the game so just tried to stay in it and give ourselves enough time for a fourth quarter push. It&#8217;s a big game, it&#8217;s always a good atmosphere it&#8217;s always packed and it&#8217;s always loud, those are fun games to play in&#8221;.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coach Giannis Sfairopoulos after the away win over Hapoel Tel Aviv in game two of the playoffs: &#8220;We knew that Hapoel will come to fight and we were prepared mentally&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":503826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-503828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel-league"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503828","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=503828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503830,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503828\/revisions\/503830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503828"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=503828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}