By Amy Samin

After the series against Fenerbahce Ulker came to an end, Maccabi’s head coach Guy Goodes noted, “I told the players I’m proud of the fight they put up. Basketball is a game of mistakes, and we made a lot of mistakes. We could have made a stop at the end, and we had the ball but we didn’t make a basket. It’s disappointing, hard. When you make mistakes like that, you lose. I told the guys to keep their heads up, and to look ahead.”

“Fenerbahce were the favorites, with a quality roster; you could see how difficult it was, playing against them. They deserve a lot of respect for this game. They are a great team, and they deserve to be in the Final Four. I’m finishing this Euroleague season with a good taste in my mouth. We reached the Top 8. We knew Fener was a great team that has accomplished amazing results this season. We fought hard and were with them right to the end. For me, as a coach, to be among one of the eight greatest coaches in Europe is an honor.”

“We will analyze our mistakes and move on. This will be done by the coaching staff together with management.  Now we need to move on and put all of our focus on the Israeli League. We have a good enough roster to take the championship here, and we have a lot of time to work on things. I believe in our guys, they’ll give it all they have. Our goal is the championship.”

Team captain Yogev Ohayon said after the game, “We should have won this game. We messed up the little things: every offensive rebound, every stop on defense, every loose ball we didn’t take, cost us baskets and that’s disappointing; because in terms of energy levels we were better than they were, we truly played hard and put everything out there. We should have won this game.”

Veteran forward Devin Smith added, “They executed, they made plays, and they won the game. A loss is a loss; it doesn’t matter if we lost after three games or five. Our European season is over, and we’re disappointed that we aren’t going on, but we still have games left here in Israel that we have to take care of, and so that’s our focus.”

Greek center Sofoklis Schortsanitis summed things up: “We tried, we did everything we could, and that was our main goal: to fight and not let them control the game. We did that, but it wasn’t enough. There are a lot of reasons why it didn’t work, but for sure everyone fought hard. It was a tough fight, and unfortunately at the last second we lost. We were just a few short steps behind.”

“It’s tough to be eliminated so early in the series, especially after last season, but no one promises you that just because you’re the Euroleague champions you’ll make it to the Final Four the next year. There are a lot of great teams out there, and you have to play on tough courts, in circumstances that aren’t easy. Every year is different from the one before, and this season we just didn’t do it.”

“We’re very frustrated, but we know we fought hard and did everything we could. It’s time for us to congratulate Fenerbahce and apologize to our fans. Now we need to pick ourselves back up and not let this disappointment affect the rest of our season. The Israeli League is still playing and we want to win the championship, so we have to focus and move on.