The Israel Basketball Winner League held a press conference ahead of Sunday’s second semifinal matchup at 21:15 between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Gilboa Galil.

Maccabi Coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos opened the gathering:
“We are in the best place we can be and when you have to overcome the problems that we have had you have confidence and you are ready to play.”

Will Quincy Acy and Elijah Bryant be available:
“We can’t answer you yet. We will do our best but we will know tomorrow.”

No favorites:
“When you play a Final 4 even when you play on your home court there are no favorites. It’s 25% for all teams to win the trophy but we have to concentrate and look to qualify for the final.”

What Maccabi learned about themselves in the Hapoel series:
“We have to fight to the end and not give up and play without point guards.”

Keys for the game versus Gilboa Galil:
“We can reduce the turnovers as a team and the fact that we have back a ball handler will help us but when we play as a unit we will be able.”

Jake Cohen the captain of the Yellow & Blue talked about the difficulties of handling the challenges of quarantine that the coronavirus presented:
“I believe that this was the toughest time in my life but we are with our teammates. We were able to come together in the time out and fix things and win the game. You’re mental and psychical states are tested and I believe that we will be well prepared for this game against Gilboa Galil due to that.”

Not shooting the ball well but was a +22
“It’s always nice to see the ball go in and but I would much rather have no points and win.”

Playing better ball:
“I hope that the team will play better and we haven’t played great other than yesterday we can improve by combining good basketball and fight that we showed in Hapoel series we will be alright.”

Bringing home a trophy at the end of a very long season:
“It’s of paramount importance and we’ve been speaking about how we want to finish strong, our team had so many injuries and so many guys stepped up. Some have left their families in the US and came back to play. If guys make that sacrifice it’s only right we go out and win, we know how much people are sacrificing and we want to make sure that this doesn’t go to waste.”

Hapoel Gilboa Galil Coach Lior Lublin spoke about the semifinal from his viewpoint:
“We’re very happy to be here and we have to bring our best, we know what the differences are both between playing ta their home and their quality. We want to make sure we can show our best. We will have our legs and a lot of motivation. We will bring our strengths and play hard.”

Co-Captain Netanel Artzi spoke about being ready to go:
“We have been preparing and thinking about Sunday’s game and how we can reach our potential as a team.”

Co-Captain Yotam Hanochi also discussed the game ahead:
“We have done a good job the last couple of months and there are still a number of tests ahead of us and I believe that we can still do some nice things.”