Itoudis: “Excuse me-not Michic or Motley”

In her bad defense Hapoel attributed Dimitris Itoudis her defeat by Maccabi (90-103) In the Tel Aviv derby for the third Euroleague match.

“We didn’t play well defense. Maccabi deserved to win. They were good at attack and scored over 100 points. We wanted to win too, but you can’t do that when you accept 100. We wanted this game, but we didn’t deserve it. We were preparing, but Maccabi has quality, every team in Euroleague has it“, He stressed.

Asked if his team showed arrogance after 2/2 replied: “Do you think I’m arrogant? The players are not to blame, it was not arrogance. We showed bad guys in defense and it’s my fault. I knew this would happen, but we are a new team and the season is still at the beginning. We are not yet what we want. I don’t know what they say about us and what it may have been in my players’ minds, but this is not even in mind. We weren’t arrogant. Unfortunately, we lost in the derby and we were not at the level we want”

Finally, he raised a protection shield to his expensive players who have not yet offered the expected. “This is a group defeat, not Michic or Motley. If you want to blame someone then blame me. It’s a good lesson for us. We didn’t want this to happen against Maccabi because it’s a derby, but it’s another Euroleague game. We made a lot of mistakes“