Basketball / Maccabi Tel Aviv heads home from Madrid after loss in final to 'better team'
By Ofer Matan
MADRID - The axiom, "CSKA is simply a better team," was more of a consolation to Maccabi Tel Aviv yesterday as the team packed up its things made their way to the airport. The axiom is true, although even if the team realized it before Sunday night, it is not entriely certain whether the game plan drawn up by Maccabi coach Zvika Sherf and his assistant Guy Goodes could have compensated for those qualitative differences and nevertheless win the Euroleague final.
The Maccabi players could be split up into two more or less distinct groups. The first group made sure to remind everyone around them and themselves of CSKA's stature vis-a-vis Maccabi, and therefore they reacted to the loss with a certain amount of disappointment, but not to an extreme. The players in this group included the Israelis and the veterans: Omri Casspi, Yotam Halperin, Derrick Sharp, Nikola Vujcic and Tal Burstein. The other group was comprised of those who took the defeat particularly hard, primarily because they are not sufficiently familiar with CSKA in order to understand the loss to some degree. Among this group were Will Bynum, Terence Morris and Esteban Batista.
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Right after the final buzzer sounded Sunday night, Bynum - who represents the group most disappointed - burst into tears. Burstein - representing the "in touch with reality" group - was quick to console him as confetti began to fall on the court around them.
"Everybody gave their heart and soul," Bynum said a little later. "The players, the coaches and the management. I cried at the end because I really wanted to win; I'm a competitive type and losses at the final level are very hard on me."
Batista, who never misses an opportunity to shed tears, was also crying when Euroleague president Jordi Bertomeu arrived for the consolation ceremony and shook the hands of Maccabi chairman Shimon Mizrahi and part-owner David Federman. In the locker room, Bynum and Batista continued to weep, while Halperin sat next to them with his face to the floor. "We succeeded in playing one half according to our game plan," said Halperin, "but in the second half they stopped us on defense."
On the other side of the locker room sat Vonteego Cummings, who shed more nerves than tears in this game. Even Morris, who was the symbol of indifference in Israeli basketball all season, even on happy occasions, was somewhat sad and stooping. He sounded a lot less forgiving than Halperin. "You can't let any team open up a big lead in the last quarter," he said. "We played badly, without confidence; we weren't aggressive enough and we lost too many balls. There have been times in the past when we had fallen behind and we got of them, so that nobody here lost faith, but CSKA was simply very good."
Vujcic identified the point when CSKA broke away. "[J.R.] Holden's two straight three-pointers at the beginning of the second half gave them a lead that we never actually closed the rest of the game, and CSKA is a team that knows very well how to hold onto leads that are not very big."
In the adjoining room, Maccabi's leading figures were gathered, and Mizrahi is patrolling the scene with a forlorn look. "I think the players really wanted it, but the ball didn't go in," he said, providing his own analysis of the final, "and when it doesn't go in, it's impossible to beat a team like CSKA."
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