{"id":507244,"date":"2021-05-09T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-09T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/i-saw-the-team-playing-with-fighting-spirit-playing-good-basketball\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T12:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T09:04:11","slug":"i-saw-the-team-playing-with-fighting-spirit-playing-good-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/i-saw-the-team-playing-with-fighting-spirit-playing-good-basketball\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I saw the team playing with fighting spirit, playing good basketball&#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\/k7lY9Lp0wOw\" 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;\">Four days before the State Cup Finals against Maccabi Rishon Le&#8217;Zion, Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv defeated Hapoel Eilat 95:72 in Menora Mivtachim Arena as part of the 28th Israeli Winner League fixture. Giannis Sfairopoulos&#8217;s unit stopped the top-ranked offensive team on 14 points in the first and 13 in the fourth while scoring 32 in the final 10 minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Tyler Dorsey knocked down five of eight three-pointers for a total of 20 points, Scottie Wilbekin contributed 17 points and 6 rebounds as Angelo Caloiaro (3 steals) and Ante Zizic (7 rebounds) each added 14 points. Othello Hunter (8 rebounds) and Omri Casspi (6 assists) were significant in the win scoring 8 points apiece.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Head coach&nbsp;<strong>Giannis Sfairopoulos<\/strong>&nbsp;summarized the win: &#8220;We were very concentrated starting the game really good on both ends of the court. In the second period, we had a hard time with rebounding and their fastbreak game which led to their return. We had to continue with the same aggressiveness as we showed in the first quarter, and we did just that, controlling the game deserving this win&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p> \t<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;I saw the team playing with fighting spirit, playing good basketball, and that makes me happy. We respect Rishon, they are a very good team, and a final is final. We will enjoy this win tonight and from tomorrow, get ready for the game&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;We knew they are a tough team battling all season against them as the first half was close, but in the second half, we got stops, shared the ball, and hit some shots&#8221;, Added&nbsp;<strong>Tyler Dorsey<\/strong>. &#8220;The fans are important for us, they get us going, so having them behind us is a huge advantage&#8221;.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">&#8220;Except that one stretch in the second quarter, we played pretty well throughout the whole game&#8221;, Analysed&nbsp;<strong>Angelo Caloiaro<\/strong>, who later spoke about the confidence boost the team received towards the State Cup Finals. &#8220;It&#8217;s big we are playing well, we didn&#8217;t want to come into the game playing as we did in the past couple of games, so it was nice we had a great second half in the previous game and this one tonight, so we are coming with a good taste in our mouths towards the Cup Finals&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Yellow &#038; Blue summarised the win over Eilat before the State Cup Finals against Rishon. Sfairopoulos: &#8220;We will enjoy this win tonight and from tomorrow, get ready for the game&#8221;. Caloiaro: &#8220;We are coming with a good taste in our mouths towards the Cup Finals&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":470644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-507244","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\/507244","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=507244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507245,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507244\/revisions\/507245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507244"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=507244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}