{"id":505636,"date":"2020-07-09T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-09T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/we-controlled-the-game\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T11:33:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T08:33:37","slug":"we-controlled-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/we-controlled-the-game\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We controlled the game&#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\/3GLbzub9x4g\" 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<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv was aware that a loss under 12 points would lock up a first-place finish in the Israeli &#8220;WINNER&#8221; League. Still, Giannis Sfairopoulos&#8217;s squad had bigger plans &#8211; complete the job in style. The Yellow &#038; Blue dominated both ends of the court, which opened a double-digit advantage midway through the first quarter and, from that point on, never looked back on it&#8217;s way to a 93:82 convincing win in the Pais Arena over Hapoel Jerusalem.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&#8220;We saw today how much we wanted this game more than Jerusalem starting the game really concentrated and following exactly our plan&#8221;, Said head coach\u00a0<\/span><strong style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Giannis Sfairopoulos<\/strong><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\u00a0after the win. &#8220;Defensively, we had a great game. The first period was very important, allowing only 14 points against a very good offensive team, and overall, the first 60 minutes were excellent defensively. Even though we lacked a bit aggressiveness in the last four minutes of the first half, the beginning of the second half was very important, allowing only 19 points in the third&#8221;.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&#8220;Offensively, we had a very good game reading the opponent&#8217;s defense, setting the ball, moving it around, finding the best shot, and attacking their weak points. Although Jerusalem tried to come back, we controlled the game keeping a safe point differential as we deserved to win. I want to congratulate our players, they showed character and how good they can play when they&#8217;re focused, determined and ready to play although we had only three foreigners and we were missing Israeli players like DiBartolomeo and Casspi&#8221;.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&#8220;We played together, we allowed 37 points in the first half, and we were flowing offensively in the first half scoring 54 points. In total, we dished 24 assists&#8221;, Told\u00a0<\/span><strong style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Yovel Zoosman<\/strong><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\u00a0about the team&#8217;s performance despite missing so many players. &#8220;We did what we desired defensively, on the offensive end, we moved the ball well and found the open man. At the half, Amar&#8217;e and Jake said it&#8217;s a brand new ballgame, it&#8217;s time to prove it all over again. We didn&#8217;t do it good enough, but the point differential from the first half helped us&#8221;.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"background-color: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&#8220;In my opinion, Scottie is one of the best players in Europe, and every time he shows why. When he wants to, no one in Europe can stop him&#8221;.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Yellow &#038; Blue celebrated the win in the capital. Sfairopoulos: &#8220;The players showed character and how good they can play when they&#8217;re focused. We deserved to win&#8221;. Zoosman: &#8220;Scottie is one of the best players in Europe&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":505633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-505636","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\/505636","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=505636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":505639,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505636\/revisions\/505639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505636"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=505636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}