{"id":504357,"date":"2019-09-21T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-21T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/we-are-working-in-the-right-direction\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T11:06:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T08:06:46","slug":"we-are-working-in-the-right-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/we-are-working-in-the-right-direction\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We are working in the right direction&#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\/Axukbxdurbo\" 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 Panathinaikos 82:71 in the semi-finals of the &#8220;Pavlos Giannakopoulos&#8221; preseason tournament in their first action against a EuroLeague competitor. The Israeli champion&#8217;s head to the finals to meet Ettore Messina&#8217;s Armani Milano who beat Fenerbahce in the earlier game.<\/p>\n<p> \t&#8220;This game showed us we are working in the right direction.&#8221; said coach <strong>Giannis Sfairopoulos<\/strong> after the win over Panathinaikos. &#8220;I said before the game in the press conference, although we are a new team I want to see the work we do at practice on the court. We are trying to improve from game to game&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p> \tThe coach clarified: &#8220;Still, we have a lot of work to do to improve on the defensive and offensive side of the ball. Scottie has been with us for three practices and today played his first game with his new teammates, which means we can improve our game much more. On the defensive side, there are a couple of things we can do to avoid easy points and that&#8217;s by working together. Offensively, our second half wasn&#8217;t as good, and we need to find better ideas on offense&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p> \tSfairopoulos ended saying: &#8220;We need time to play all together. We indeed won this game but what&#8217;s important now is to build our game, learn each other, and play together&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">&#8220;It was good to get a win in my first game back&#8221;, Said <strong>Scottie Wilbekin<\/strong> after finishing the game with 11 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists. &#8220;We came out energetic, and everybody was giving something to the team, hitting shots, and playing tough defense. For me, it was a great first game, the team even when we were missing a couple of players moved in positive directions and that&#8217;s a good sign. I saw a bit of Milano&#8217;s game, they are a strong team, but hopefully we can come out with the same performance tomorrow. Panathinaikos honored us before the game and Shimon at half time, so that was cool. There were a lot of fans, so it was a good environment&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p> \t&#8220;We played a good game. It all started on defense for us&#8221;, Said <strong>Elijah Bryant<\/strong>. &#8220;We came out very aggressive on defense, and it allowed our offense to play well. The atmosphere was amazing, the fans were loud, it was a great experience, and I&#8217;m honored to play here&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p> \t&#8220;I feel like it was a great start of the tournament for us&#8221;, Said <strong>Tyler Dorsey<\/strong>, who finished as the top scorer with 18 points.&#8221;We did have a couple of mistakes defensively, but we put together a pretty good game. We are going to look at some film and bounce back because we have another game to play tomorrow, so we have to prepare for them too. I&#8217;m used to playing in a tough environment, I like it because it brings a competitive spirit out of me. It felt like a road game, our first two EuroLeague games are on the road, so it&#8217;s great to get used to that&#8221;.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Yellow &#038; Blue summarized the win over Panathinaikos. Sfairopoulos: &#8220;What is important now is to build our game, learn each other, and play together&#8221;. Dorsey: &#8220;Our first two EuroLeague games are on the road, so it&#8217;s great to get used to that&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":504355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-504357","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\/504357","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=504357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":504359,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504357\/revisions\/504359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504357"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=504357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}