{"id":506229,"date":"2020-11-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/we-wanted-to-come-out-with-a-statement-win\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T11:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T08:46:16","slug":"we-wanted-to-come-out-with-a-statement-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/we-wanted-to-come-out-with-a-statement-win\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We wanted to come out with a statement 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\/pzuxib-EMos\" 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; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv&#8217;s dropped 32 points in the first 10 minutes and 58 in the first half defeating Maccabi Rishon Le&#8217; Zion 92:72 on its way to the Winner Cup Finals. The Yellow &#038; Blue showed urge and concentration, running away from the Oranges with a 29 point advantage midway through the second quarter, not letting Rishon Le&#8217; Zion feel comfortable on the court. Maccabi will play against Hapoel Holon in the Finals.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&#8220;We started the game well, we were really concentrated in the beginning and played smart on both ends of the court&#8221;, Said head coach\u00a0<\/span><strong style=\"margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Giannis Sfairopoulos\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">after advancing to the Finals. &#8220;We disorganized their offense in the first half, and offensively we moved the ball and shot it well, playing one really productive half&#8221;.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\n<p style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; color: rgb(14, 16, 26); margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&#8220;In the second half, we had parts in the game that we lost our concentration, didn&#8217;t play good defense and didn&#8217;t execute on offense turning the ball over 12 times in second half, most of them were in the third period. I didn&#8217;t like what I saw in those minutes, but it was also very important how we reacted in the last period. We calmed down after my timeout, everybody was more concentrated, and we played a couple of good sequences in a row. After that, it was a matter of time until the final whistle&#8221;.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;We were up by 25 points, and they came back down to 9. I had to react. Next time I&#8217;ll also break the coach&#8217;s board, don&#8217;t worry&#8221;, Joked coach Sfairopoulos.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<strong style=\"font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Ante Zizic<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\u00a0spoke about the adjustment period: &#8220;For me, this is a new team, and before the EuroLeague, we didn&#8217;t play a lot of preseason games, so for sure, we still need time to get some team chemistry, but game by game, we are getting better trying to find the open man. My teammates found me well looks tonight&#8221;.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<strong style=\"font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Scottie Wilbekin<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">, who finished as the top scorer with 22 points, commented: &#8220;They came back, and they were ready to take the lead back from us, but we found a way to get back to playing tough defense as we showed in the first couple of minutes. We wanted to come out with the win and a statement win because of the way the EuroLeague game went&#8221;.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">On his Croatian big man: &#8220;Ante is definitely a hard matchup for the defense, and as he gets more reps in Israeli League, he&#8217;ll get more used to it&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">&#8220;It&#8217;s just to fit in wherever I can, and what coach wants from me I&#8217;m going to do&#8221;, Told\u00a0<\/span><strong style=\"font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Max Heidegger<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\u00a0to reporters after finishing the night with 12 points. &#8220;No matter the number of minutes they give me, I&#8217;ll try to take advantage of it as much as I can&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;My experience has been awesome so far. It was a tough transition for me initially coming in with COVID, being in lockdown, and coming into a new situation with all that in the background. The season started pretty much already when I got here, but it&#8217;s been awesome. Maccabi is one of the biggest clubs in the world, and I&#8217;m blessed to be here&#8221;.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Yellow &#038; Blue summarized clinching to the preseason tournament Finals. Sfairopoulos: &#8220;We started the game well, playing one really productive half&#8221;. Zizic: &#8220;Game by game, we are getting better&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":506225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-506229","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\/506229","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=506229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506233,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506229\/revisions\/506233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506229"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=506229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}