Hapoel Tel Aviv fell deeper into trouble on Thursday night, losing 102:98 at home to Maccabi Tel Aviv in Game 2 of the Israeli league finals and dropping into a 2:0 series deficit. No team in the history of the Israeli Premier League has come back to win a championship after losing the first two games of a finals series.
After the game, coach Dimitris Itoudis said his team had fought as planned, but the result was still disappointing. “We fought the way we wanted in a game like this. Unfortunately, the result was not good for us. It is not over,” he said. “We believe we can come back from 2:0. It will be hard given the score, but it is not over. We will keep believing, we will keep working.” He added that in many statistical categories, “we were the better team tonight.”
Itoudis said he would not go into tactical detail about what helped Maccabi, explaining that Hapoel had good looks that did not fall and shots that missed. He also said the issue was not whether the defense was man-to-man or zone, noting that Maccabi switched to man-to-man in the closing minutes.
The moment that ended the interview came when Itoudis was asked about the final play. He responded by referring to assistant coach Dedas and Hapoel’s practice work: “Dedas is my assistant coach, I trust him. That is how we work on it in training. Maybe Barak Laderer will draw up the next play, that is how it is. I do not understand why you are even asking this. That is how we work in practice.”
