{"id":507023,"date":"2021-03-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/each-of-us-had-to-step-up\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T12:00:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T09:00:53","slug":"each-of-us-had-to-step-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/each-of-us-had-to-step-up\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Each of us had to step up&#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\/QYc3W76MfC0\" 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&#8217;s excellent team performance led to an impressive road victory over Maccabi Rishon Le&#8217;Zion 89:72, which started a stretch of six away games in the Israeli Winner League. With the win, the Yellow &amp; Blue improved their record to 16 wins compared to 3 losses gaining ground at the top of the league standings. On Sunday, the domestic journey continues as Giannis Sfairopoulos&#8217;s squad heads out to Romema Arena facing Hapoel Haifa.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">The first half belonged to Elijah Bryant, who knocked down 15 points, but the MVP of the night goes to Ante Zizic, who dominated the paint with 20 points (100% from 2PT), nine rebounds, and 4 blocks for a total of 39 PIR points.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> \t<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;We had a good game from the tip-off, starting concentrated defensively, not allowing Rishon their great passing game that represents their style of play&#8221;, Told head coach&nbsp;<strong>Giannis Sfairopoulos<\/strong>&nbsp;about the early indicators which led to the win. &#8220;We also had a good offensive game with 6 players scoring in double figures, and many players had a role sharing the ball. Zizic was unstoppable inside, and we fed him the ball smartly, which led to a double-digit difference for most parts of the game. Also, Elijah was really good tonight, especially defensively doing a great job on Pargo&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;It was a back-to-back game for us, so we mainly had to prepare mentally. We wanted as much energy as possible, and the only way to change that negative momentum was to change the psychological part bringing the players to the right mindset.&#8221;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> \t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"980\" height=\"420\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/casspi-6.jpg\" style=\"width: 980px; height: 420px;\" class=\"wp-image-507021 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/casspi-6.jpg 980w, https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/casspi-6-300x129.jpg 300w, https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/casspi-6-768x329.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;Each of us had to step up after Tuesday, and we did that tonight. We showed we could play harder with the right energy&#8221;, Said the Croatian big man&nbsp;<strong>Ante Zizic<\/strong>&nbsp;about the Yellow &amp; Blue performance. &#8220;When Othello went down, not only I had to step up, and as a team, we did a great job at that. Coach prepared us really well defensively, and when you play well on that side of the ball, it&#8217;s much easier to share the ball and make open shots as we did tonight&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Yellow &#038; Blue explained the great team display, which led to the away win. Sfairopoulos: &#8220;We wanted as much energy as possible, and the only way to change that negative momentum was bringing the players to the right mindset&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":507020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-507023","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\/507023","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=507023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507026,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507023\/revisions\/507026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507023"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=507023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}