By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
In a heartbreaking outcome losing to Panathinaikos in OAKA, Maccabi Tel Aviv couldn’t make it to the EuroLeague Final Four after starting the series up 1-0 in Athens.
In the post-game press conference, Oded Kattash showed all his pride for his team’s effort. “I wanna start by saying that I’m really proud of the players. For me, this group of guys are really champions, even though we didn’t qualify for the Final Four”, he said.
Later on, he also talked about refereeing mistakes. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but there were some things behind basketball. I wished this series would have been decided by players and basketball. We never talked about referees all throughout the series, even though our opponents did. Maybe we should”, the Israeli head coach commented.
Touching more on this topic, he criticized a huge gap in free throws conceded to the two teams. “If I take out Lorenzo Brown’s last four shots, it was 35-6 in free throws. Maybe that’s a coincidence, but it’s a crazy number. It’s making me feel a little bit embarrassed and sorry for the players, who deserved it”, he said.
“We as a club, through all the series, players, coaches, had more respect for basketball and the EuroLeague, than some of the people who were on the court tonight. I’ll stop here”, he finally ended up speaking about the way the game was conducted.
“Nobody gave us a chance after October 7”
Asked about one thing he would have liked to be different during this series, he had only one thing in mind. “Pray to god that Wade Baldwin wouldn’t be injured. I’m really proud of the players, don’t get me wrong. Even though we missed Wade throughout the series, almost from Game 1”, he replied.
“We missed one of our biggest leaders and best players, but we gave us a chance. But that was the moment that changed the series. We proved we’re a really good basketball team, we have character, even though we weren’t playing in front of our home crowd. We can’t have the same atmosphere as here in Athens”, Oded Kattash also commented on missing from Tel Aviv.
Finalizing the press conference by going back at what happened during the whole 2023-24 season, the Israeli head coach had more proud words. “Nobody really gave us a chance after October 7. Sometimes people forget we played only one home court game“, Maccabi’s head coach addressed.
“Under those circumstances, to achieve what we achieved it’s special. And it’s going to be specialIt’s hard to talk now after losing in Game 5. It was my dream, the players wanted it as much as I did. We’re going to keep our heads up, we’re really proud of the way we played this year”, he concluded.
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