{"id":503888,"date":"2019-06-10T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/we-werent-great-but-we-deserve-to-be-in-the-finals\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T10:53:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T07:53:55","slug":"we-werent-great-but-we-deserve-to-be-in-the-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/we-werent-great-but-we-deserve-to-be-in-the-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We weren&#8217;t great but we deserve to be in the finals&#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\/SRfqqo1OpPI\" 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 defeated Eilat to qualify to the championship game of the Israeli league. The yellows will face the winner between Maccabi Rishon Le Zion and Hapoel Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<p> \t&#8220;I think we controlled most of the game&#8221;, said a pleased coach Sfairopoulos. &#8220;We didn\u2019t play great basketball, but I think that with the way the game went \u2013 we fought and we deserved to win. We&#8217;ve had a 7-8 point lead, twice, but at that point when we need to be more determined to finish the game, we couldn&#8217;t and we allowed them to come back. At the end it was an open game. We need to show up in situations like this. I&#8217;m in this line of work for so many years, you need to make the right decisions sometimes they get you to your goal and sometimes \u2013 not. Today we made good decisions the players as well. When you lead the standings for 33 rounds and you get to play just one game- then it&#8217;s obvious we will be tensed. We play final four both in the cup and in the league I don&#8217;t understand it&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p> \t&#8220;We gave them a chance to get back into the game&#8221;, coach Giannis added. &#8220;I think we responded well tactically and we stopped them from coming back. I want to congratulate my players, we will rest tonight and we will start to think about the finals from tomorrow morning&#8221;.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coach Giannis Sfairopoulos after the 85:83 win in the semifinals over Hapoel Eilat: &#8220;I think we responded well tactically and we stopped them from coming back&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":503884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-503888","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\/503888","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=503888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503892,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503888\/revisions\/503892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503888"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=503888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}