{"id":506484,"date":"2020-12-17T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/the-players-tried-to-come-back-but-unfortunately-we-missed\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T11:51:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T08:51:45","slug":"the-players-tried-to-come-back-but-unfortunately-we-missed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/the-players-tried-to-come-back-but-unfortunately-we-missed\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The players tried to come back, but unfortunately, we missed&#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\/-mY3O7wTHe0\" 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 Playtika Tel Aviv came to France with a two-game winning streak but couldn&#8217;t add on after dropping the game to Villeurbanne, 81:84. The Israeli champions chased the French squad throughout the whole contest and forced a close clash but missed a game-tying three-pointer in the final possession.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">In the second half, Scottie Wilbekin showed up great on both ends of the court, finishing the night with 25 points, but the Yellow &amp; Blue dug a deep hole and couldn&#8217;t complete the comeback. Dragan Bender (11 points) and Elijah Bryant (12 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals) each had a solid overall game. The 5:9 Maccabi finish off their 6 game road trip on Friday, playing against Barcelona, leaders of the EuroLeague standings.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Maccabi&#8217;s head coach&nbsp;<strong>Giannis Sfairopoulos<\/strong>&nbsp;summarized the game from his perspective: &#8220;We didn&#8217;t start the game as we planned, we couldn&#8217;t obtain control in the first half because of our defense allowing 50 first-half points. In the second half, we changed the momentum, played better defensively, and returned to the game. A positive thing to take was seeing the team show better character. Even after going down 11 in the fourth quarter, we didn&#8217;t give up, the players tried to come back, and we had one final shot to tie the game, but unfortunately, we missed&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;We came out slow and gave up way too many easy buckets in the first half, building too big of a hole&#8221;, Said&nbsp;<strong>Angelo Caloiaro<\/strong>, after dropping the road game. &#8220;By the time we turned it around defensively, really locking in and playing more aggressively, it was a little too late. In the second half, we continued to fight, didn&#8217;t give up at the end, and that&#8217;s a positive, but we need to start better and play better all four quarters&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"980\" height=\"420\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/eb20vil20980.jpg\" style=\"font-size: 14px; width: 980px; height: 420px;\" class=\"wp-image-506482 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/eb20vil20980.jpg 980w, https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/eb20vil20980-300x129.jpg 300w, https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/eb20vil20980-768x329.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Yellow &#038; Blue summarized the loss in France. Sfairopoulos: &#8220;We didn&#8217;t start the game as we planned. Even after going down 11 in the fourth quarter, we didn&#8217;t give up&#8221;. Caloiaro: &#8220;We need to start better and play better all four quarters&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":506481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-506484","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\/506484","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=506484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506487,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506484\/revisions\/506487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506484"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=506484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}