The Israel Basketball League held a press conference ahead of the 25/26 finals best-of-five series between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv which will crown a champion for the campaign that took a long and winding road between the war with Iran and the players strike. Yellow-and-blue Head Coach Oded Katash along with reds bench boss Dimitrios Itoudis as well as Roman Sorkin and Bar Timor all spoke to the gathered media.

“It’s difficult to see clear solutions in our situation,” Maccabi Head Coach Oded Katash began. “We’re too short-handed and we’re missing quality players. There’s no way to play a certain style without them. We never thought we’d face an opponent out of form and we knew this series would be special. There’s no single solution to the situation, so we’re preparing several options. We’ll have to see how things develop. Home-court advantage has helped us in the past and I hope it will again, but in my opinion, there is no favorite.”

Katash also spoke about Jaylen Hoard, who is playing his best basketball of the season, “Jaylen is extremely important, especially considering our absences. He has a lot on his shoulders. We’ll need him. I’m happy he’s with us and hope he’ll stay with us for a long time. When he’s playing well, it’s usually a sign that the team is playing well. He feeds off all of us, the crowd included, just like the rest of us do. I hope the arena is full tomorrow with the right kind of energy. The derby is very significant. These are the only two league games we’ve lost this season. The last loss was a useful reminder for us.”

Dimitris Itoudis, Hapoel Tel Aviv’s Head Coach shared his thoughts on the finals, ”I’ve heard about the injuries and absences. We need to adapt ourselves to the situation. The team and the fans are what matter, and we’re proud to have reached this point. We believe our journey is not over. We have our key Israeli players with us, and we’ll make the necessary adjustments. We have a lot of respect for Maccabi. They excel in rebounding, which will play an important role in this series. We need to do many things correctly and this is a series, not just one game so there are many aspects we’ll have to handle well. We practice in the same place and play in the same place and we don’t want to see empty seats. It’s always great to receive support from the fans.”

Itoudis also spoke about the Knicks ending a 50+ year drought which is similar to Hapoel’s situation, “I’ll be honest, we talked about that. I hope. We believe in that. We went through different challenges and here we are on the biggest challenge. It’s a nice story, let’s wait until the end if we have a positive outcome. Right now we focus on X and Os”
 
Maccabi big man Roman Sorkin talked about the goal at hand, “The secret to our success is that we have great people in the locker room. We’ve been through so much this season. I hope that’s all behind us now. Our main goal has always been, and remains, winning the championship and that’s what we’re focused on. There were concerns, but the club has done an excellent job helping the foreign players understand the situation, and some of them have gotten used to it. It’s a relief that we can focus on basketball now. Maybe that allows us to forget some of the craziness we’ve gone through.”
 
Hapoel captain Bar Timor discussed the matter at hand and finally winning a title for the reds, “We’ve been thinking about this during this period because the goal is right in front of us. We want to finish the season on a high note and end the drought. I don’t know if there’s much to take from previous meetings into this series. We’re a good team. Yam Madar adds a lot for us, and we have many other quality players. It’s not about Israelis versus foreigners we simply have a strong team. I dealt with an injury at a bad time, and it slowed me down during the playoffs. I’m feeling better every day, and I hope to get my opportunity this time. In a series like this, you need to bring more than just basketball. Every player needs to contribute something extra.”