Gilboa / Galil opened the season with three promising victories, but since Lior Lyubin's team just doesn't stop diving.
Yiftach Ziv. Unable to pinpoint beyond the arc
Photo:
Danny Maron
1. Opening the Gilboa / Galil season in the post-Ariel era of Bethlehem was just great. Lior Lyubin, who returned to the north and also to the club he previously served, led the team to 0: 3 and a lot of optimism.
Today Gilboa will host Maccabi Tel Aviv (21.00) in the Candle Garden, and unless the team does not produce a surprising sensation, it will close the round at the bottom. Since the triple win in the opening, Lyubin's team has only won once in seven games (in two extensions in Ness Ziona). At home she has not won since October 19th.
Gilboa has surprised Maccabi many times in recent years. In her current state of mind, the champion's current fitness, which has not lost in the league and is in great momentum in the Euroleague - the chances of it happening tonight are not so realistic.
2. So where are the problems? First of all on defense. Gilboa's attack works reasonably well with 85 points per game. The story of the great fall lies in defense. Gilboa is the most absorbed team in the league, nearly 90 points. It's not at all accidental that soft defense is due to the players' substance - the team's roster is not to say the least in tough defensive players.
Lyubin is looking for answers. The change must come only through the defense // Photo: Danny Maron
When the attack works, Gilboa matters. When things don't quite stick in defense, the Northern team is defeating like the last round at home against Maccabi Rashab (75:96), or like the previous home game - 76:95 to Nahariya. To make this season back, Gilboa needs to stop being a nice team. She must be more "evil", much tougher.
Gilboa is a young team, with a roster of 23-year-old strangers - Justin Tillman and the rest of Israelis are 24 and under, at a time of losses it probably doesn't help. However, the main reason is still said in the defensive part of the team that does not allow the team to win games through the defense. In only two games did she score less than 80 points.
Maccabi Tel Aviv in timeout. Rise to Gilboa before the game against zero // Photo: Udi Tsiatiat
3. Gilboa suffered injuries and quite a few times she played short-staff. Young player Yotam Chanukhi, on whom he built a lot, has not played since the first cycle. And there are other problems: The team has two of the league's top strangers: Justin Tillman and Jarmar Galli are in the top three in points as well as in the index and Tillman is also third in the rebounding table. Both together provide an average of 40 points per game, almost half of the team's points. The problem is that the rest of the team players do not give enough output.
The Israeli senior of the team will open Ziv accurate by only 14 percent to three and also Nathaniel Artzi was better last season. The other two foreigners, Justin Vernado and Edgar Sosa, had higher expectations as well. Most likely, the move the group may take to change the whole picture is a foreign exchange.
