sport
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Euroleague and European basketball
Ahrela Weisberg
Behind the Scenes
Star, anti-star: The look that the gray Olympiacos presented to Maccabi Tel Aviv
Wilbkin broke the record for losing a player at the club, Dorsey crashed again after a play, Sussman has a hard time remembering his last basket, and the Greeks actually won a historic (negative) evening for Spanoulis.
The faces and numbers behind the drama in Elijah's hand, and the smile of Bratzokas that betrayed everything
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Maccabi Tel Aviv in basketball
Olympiacos
Ahrela Weisberg
Wednesday, January 13, 2021, 10:00 p.m.
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Another drama, another loss.
Scotty Wilbkin (Photo: Danny Maron)
1. Two points?
Least tight for years
Not long after, when the culture of the zoomers becomes a nostalgic memory, the introductory courses in drama at educational institutions will open with a screening of abstracts from Olympiacos Piraeus' recent visits to Yad Eliyahu.
2021 - 73:73 in legal time, 87:89 to Olympiacos in overtime.
2020 - 70:71 to Maccabi Tel Aviv.
2019 - 64:65 to Maccabi Tel Aviv.
2018 - 68:69 to Olympiacos.
This time, unlike the previous three cases, Yannis Sapropoulos was on the losing side of the drama.
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In 342 Euroleague appearances, there was no such thing.
Spanoulis with his former coach Sapropoulos (Photo: Danny Maron)
2. Negative club record in 20 years of Euroleague
Olympiacos presented Maccabi Tel Aviv with a mirror, and the figure reflected from it is not flattering.
There was not much left for the Yellows to return to a happy and winning streak, but it is important to remember who they faced: the Greeks have a gray and not the most talented team, which is currently in the playoffs - but it is doubtful they will be able to keep it for long.
And in one sentence: Olympiacos is a team that Charles Jenkins remained a legitimate rotation player in its ranks in 2021.
And it is precisely its problems that have flooded and presented the weaknesses of the Yellows.
She landed in Tel Aviv without her leading junior forward, Costas Papanicolaou, and without her main scorer in the back line, Aron Harrison (who scored the three wins against Maccabi in the previous round);
Its leading inside players, Yorgos Printzis and Hassan Martin, are far from their peak fitness;
And the backups behind them, Sasha and Zankov and Octavius Ellis, did not issue a big game yesterday.
Still, these four, minus the two that were missing, contributed far more than their counterparts.
Sapropoulos fell into the traps set by Yorgos Bratzokas, and found no solutions for Olympiacos' athletic lineups.
* Maccabi Tel Aviv scored only six points from bursting attacks throughout the entire evening.
* Effective Greek pressure has dragged Scotty Wilbkin to eight losses - a negative record for a club player in 20 Euroleague years.
* Wilbkin almost touched his season-high shooting record, finishing with 25 points, but he also had 22 fouls and losses.
* Maccabi left ten points on the penalty line, four of them in the decisive moments, with two of the fouls being committed unconventionally by Wilbkin (player of 89 percent until last night).
Olympiacos hit the final eight minutes in 11 of 12.
* The four Israelis together put together a common index of minus eight.
Yes, 8-.
* And the Yellows paid for Tyler Dorsey's show in Berlin.
Earlier this season, scoring 26 points and eight threes against Himki, he dropped to one point and 0-of-7 in the next game;
Also yesterday, after 25 points and 5 of 7 from outside the arc in Germany, he crashed on eight points in 1 of 5.
More losses in one game than any other yellow in Euroleague history.
Wilbkin (Photo: Danny Maron)
Zero points for Spanoulis.
Still, the sun is shining
Bratzokas, the man replaced by Sapropolus at the Peace and Fraternity Hall, is a happy ray.
Beyond the personal prestige, and the healthy rivalry between professionals coming from the same country, the same city and the same port, he had good reason to be pleased.
For this victory, irrespective of the identity of the opponent and the rival, was to a considerable extent his victory.
Leading Euroleague teams are well aware of the phenomenon: Addiction to one star, no matter how big, can become a burden as he grows older, or even ages in basketball terms, and is no longer as fast, sharp and healthy as he once was.
His magnetic figure does not allow him, and the people around him, to come to terms with the new reality - and in quite a few cases, it is precisely those stars who set a low glass ceiling at the end of their careers for the teams that led to their successes.
In other words: they are no longer as good as they used to be, but still received the treatment of leading players.
It happened to Juan Carlos Navarro in Barcelona.
To some extent, this also happened to Dimitris diamantidis in Panathinaikos.
And in the past two years it has happened to Vasilis Spanoulis at Olympiacos.
And yesterday the Reds won a game that “was like a final for us,” as more than one player defined it;
They did so at the end of a dramatic thriller, dragged into overtime, and decided on flashes on the one hand and mistakes on the other;
And it happened, inconceivably, on a night devoid of Spanoulis.
The Greek guard was present at the hall last night, but was absent.
In his 342 Euroleague appearances (more than any other player), he has never played so little as yesterday - five minutes and eight seconds;
In his 342 appearances, there were only two more instances where he returned to the locker room at the end without scoring a point.
Zero points in 5:08 minutes.
To the legendary Vasilis Spanoulis.
In a close game.
Still, the sun was shining this morning.
40 points per team, 34 of which came from him.
Slokas oversees Caspi (Photo: Danny Maron)
4. The 23rd player
Bratzokas needed a lot of courage to put together the squad of Olympiacos without really building on Spanoulis.
And this is a courage that is probably reserved for those who have already brought the European Cup to Piraeus.
Two years ago, when David Blatt dared to put the last ball in the hands of Nigel Williams Goss, in a home game against Fenerbahce, and he missed on the way to a point loss, the Greek media was already on the sidelines.
But the Greek coach had two heroes in the back line, and the wide smile that accompanied him on the way to the locker room he owes to both.
One is the classic hero, Costas Slokas.
Yesterday, in the 14th minute, the quarterback had zero points and a single assist - but out of the next 40 points his team scored, he was directly responsible for 34: half scored by himself, and half came from his assists.
Then, in overtime, he did not score a field goal, but handed the crucial balls to the two crucial threes in the game.
And the other hero is the most anti-hero there is: Janolis Lardzakis, a 27-year-old rookie who until last night was worth a total of 2.8 points per night (plus ten games in which he was not a partner at all), and was the 23rd and last player on both teams to hit the floor last night.
the last one.
It took 27 minutes and 44 seconds for Berzokas to remember his existence, and give him a chance to play.
It was almost too late, but only almost.
From the moment he entered, Ledzakis did not get off the field until the end of extra time.
He is ranked eighth in the Olympiacos in minutes (17), but second in points (13), third in rebounds (3), first in steals (2), first in offense (5) and second in the index (17), in each and every one of these areas he determines - or at least Compares - its seasonal highs.
And all this is happening, as mentioned, before the astonished eyes of Spanoulis from the end of the south bench.
5. Meanwhile in Tel Aviv
44 minutes and 38 seconds, spread over almost three games, have passed since Yuval Sussman scored his last basket in the Euroleague.
It's time to stop counting tomorrow.
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