{"id":505698,"date":"2020-07-24T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/we-played-as-a-team-we-deserve-to-win\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T11:34:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T08:34:52","slug":"we-played-as-a-team-we-deserve-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/we-played-as-a-team-we-deserve-to-win\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We played as a team, we deserve to win&#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\/KPk_6TI68YI\" 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<p dir=\"ltr\"> \t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv came into Game 3 of the Israeli &#8220;Winner&#8221; League quarterfinals against Hapoel Tel Aviv in a tight spot playing without Scottie Wilbekin (ejected), Yovel Zoosman, Quincy Acy and Elijah Bryant who were out due to injuries.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">The Yellow &amp; Blue took an early double-digit advantage, the Reds completed their comeback, but the Israeli champions pushed on all of the right buttons passing by Hapoel, 83:68, and a 2:1 series win. After clinching to the Final Four, Maccabi will meet Hapoel Gilboa\/Galil on Sunday for a ticket to the finals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;I want to congratulate our players, we had great fighting spirit although all of these absences, we showed our spirit and we deserve to win&#8221;, Said head coach&nbsp;<strong>Giannis Sfairopoulos<\/strong>&nbsp;in his postgame press conference. &#8220;We had the lead for most of the game, we were in control really good, but it wasn&#8217;t. We played as a team starting from the good defense, and we played smart offensively&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;Everybody was ready to fight tonight, including me&#8221;, added Sfairopoulos, preparing for this game. &#8220;I&#8217;m reminding you Tyler was quarantined and for 10 days he didn&#8217;t practice, it&#8217;s normal not to be in good shape, but tonight he did a great job, he showed up when we needed him. But it&#8217;s a team game, and I don&#8217;t want to speak only about one player, Everybody did a great job they were focused, determined, and they fought really hard to win this game. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m really proud&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;We were down a couple of men, so I knew that I have some pressure on my shoulders, but I like pressure&#8221;, Said Game 3 MVP&nbsp;<strong>Tyler Dorsey<\/strong>&nbsp;after clinching a Final Four spot. &#8220;It was a team effort tonight, Everybody stepped up, and every little minute that every guy played tonight was important for us. This was a loser goes home game, so no matter who was on the court, we knew we got to play hard, finish it and win and we found a way to do it tonight&#8221;.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;We feel their support all the time, Maccabi has the best fans, and we want to control the city&#8221;, Told Dorsey about the fan&#8217;s support through these tough times. &#8220;We are going to be prepared, we got to keep that history going, and we can&#8217;t lose as simple as that. We want the ring, and that&#8217;s our only goal, we have to find a way no matter how it looks&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Yellow &#038; Blue celebrated the series win and clinching a Final Four ticket. Sfairopoulos: &#8220;Everybody was ready to fight tonight, including me. I want to congratulate our players, we showed our spirit tonight&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":505695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-505698","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\/505698","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=505698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":505701,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505698\/revisions\/505701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505698"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=505698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}