Hapoel Tel Aviv hosts Maccabi Tel Aviv in game two of the Israel basketball league championship best-of-five series on Thursday night (20:50) at Yad Eliyahu as the Rdds will look to even up the series at one game a piece while the yellow-and-blue will try and put a stranglehold on the series and move to within one win of the title.

After Maccabi’s 96-75 game one win in which Oded Katash’s troops were the more aggressive team, Hapoel will need to dig down deep and try to find the character to knot the series up.

Ahead of game two, both head coaches along with Hapoel’s Tomer Ginat and Maccabi’s Iffe Lundberg spoke about what lies in front of them.

“There are things to change,” reds head coach Dimitrios Itoudis began. “We didn’t show up with the right mindset. We had no right to be like that. It’s a final game. We play against a rival, a very experienced team that had a huge motivation because we have won the last two games against them. So they show up on the court. We didn’t hustle at the level that is required in a final. So this is what we’re trying to do, being more physical, being more up to the point, we will change some details obviously and also on the strategy and we’re going to be ready for the game two.”

As for the fans, Itoudis was not happy that his team didn’t put in the effort that was necessary, “I apologize to them because they were very helpful on the game one and we didn’t play up to the level that they like to. We want to make them proud and our identity is this, to at least fight and we haven’t fought. We haven’t fought enough as the finals require. So we’re going to do that and we’re expecting them to come and fill the gym and boost the team and help the team to lift on a different level. This is a game of character and physicality. We do have enough character in the team.”

Tomer Ginat spoke about game one’s issues, “The last game was a bit unusual for us. They scored a lot of points off our turnovers and from offensive rebounds. Those are a couple of things that can change. A lot of it comes down to approach and decision-making and we need to come in much more focused and aggressive from the start. We need to look different in game two and we’ll do everything we can to make sure that happens.

“It’s about hard work, and we need to stay together. The last game wasn’t easy, but it’s a best-of-five series. There’s still a long series ahead of us and we’ll need to come out and play differently, be much more aggressive and even the series. I don’t think we can look like that not in a derby and not in a final. I think in game two we’ll come out and try to make everyone proud. I hope as many fans as possible come out and support us and we’ll do everything we can to tie the series.”

Oded Katash shared his thoughts going into game two, “There wasn’t much time to practice. Things come quickly, every two days because of the schedule, so we only had a tactical practice session and worked on the adjustments we want to make for the game. We need to try to understand that they may do things differently and be prepared for every scenario. It’s clear to all of us that yesterday was an extraordinary game, an unusual game, with points off turnovers and so on. We need to see what happens in game two and it’s clear to all of us that it’s only 1–0 and that we don’t have any advantage.

“It’s natural that Hapoel will want to respond, because that’s what teams do, especially when they’re behind and after a game like that. We need to be ready for it. The atmosphere will be a little different, there may be more noise against us and we’ll need to stay focused. We’ll react as the game develops.”

Iffe Lundberg also spoke ahead of the matchup, “We’re expecting them to respond in a certain way. What adjustments they’ll make, we obviously don’t know but we have to make sure we’re ready for them. At the end of the day, we need to focus on ourselves, on our game plan, and simply bring the effort, especially the defensive effort that we brought in Game one. I think if we do that, we’ll give ourselves a pretty good chance to have a good Game 2 as well.”

“What we can improve is our cohesion a little bit. Even though I’d say we played a pretty good team game, we still had some lapses in concentration, especially during the third quarter. They went on a run and pushed forward but that’s part of basketball; it’s a game of momentum. What we did really well was our aggressiveness on the boards. We have a very athletic team, I’d say a very big team and we took advantage of that in Game 1. I think that’s going to be a key factor in Game 2 as well.”