There are no good losses, no respectable losses, and there is no reason to be encouraged by the fact that Maccabi Tel Aviv was close to the great CSKA.
Because CSKA is no longer big, and Maccabi should have won this game and continued its excellent streak. Now it is also taking out of a deep crisis a team that will compete directly with it for a place in the playoffs, instead of producing a huge shock, which would probably cause significant changes in Moscow.
This is a huge miss, and not because Maccabi played well.
The Yellows put up a mediocre game and down, scoring just two threes, and still the game was in their hands.
Of course, it is difficult to blame a single person for a loss that is decided on a single move, but Maccabi could have created a margin of safety and did not do so, and the responsibility can also be placed on the head of Yannis Sapropoulos.
In previous games he made trials and errors, but the opponent was weak enough for his team to be able to correct.
In this game there was a much smaller error margin.
CSKA is not big, Alexei Shevd destroys it from the inside, but she has fine individual talents - especially Lundberg - that were enough to keep the advantage minimal, along with a number of shots that came in at the last second of the attack. Luck went with them too.
And where did Yannis go wrong? In inappropriate formations, each time only for a few minutes, including horrible and unfair minutes for Yiftach Ziv as against Basconia. In the lack of spur to run at every opportunity, and in the crucial minute regression, put the ball in Scotty Wilbkin’s hands and pray. Maccabi's high top five did not play together in the fourth quarter, the running game was stopped almost completely, and Nanali, who was frozen on the bench in the fourth quarter, was returned too late. He therefore missed two critical shots and lost the ball of the game after a defensive rebound, which went up by four points. There, in fact, Maccabi lost the space cushion and began to chase the host until the end.
Maccabi's outstanding players - Williams and Žižić, stood out in the passing game and in the outbursts, and this is a great way to deal with a team like that of Itudis.
But it did not happen enough.
Even in the game that is coming to an end, the ball was returned to Wilbkin's hands, as in the first game of the season, as if Maccabi has not progressed since.
Scotty dribbled and dribbled, then tried to do something improvised that usually ended in loss or miss.
Also in this case, Yannis had to put the ball with Evans and get Scotty out on a Williams block.
No need for exercise.
Only movement and exchange of places.
But nothing happened, and even in the last ball the melody returned again, and the ball came by chance to Williams.
That's not how you get to the top.
And so CSKA did not eat it, but Maccabi ate the heart.