Despite a weak season opener after Obradovic's departure, the Turks became the hottest team in the Euroleague with six consecutive victories, including one in Moscow • Avi Segal on Fener's big change, who will host Maccabi Tel Aviv tonight (20:00, Sport 5) in an important battle The place in the first eight
De Colo vs. Bryant.
Tonight they meet in Turkey
Photography:
Alan Shiver
Maccabi Tel Aviv meets tonight (20:00, Sport 5) in Istanbul the hot team of the Euroleague.
What is hot, burning.
Fenerbahce is in good shape at the factory with six consecutive victories culminating in a victory in Moscow over CSKA in the last round.
Last week it was worthwhile for the Yellows to meet the injured and missing Real Madrid, this week the timing for the meeting with Fener is really not good.
What a revolution the Turkish team has undergone in recent rounds.
Between the 8th and 15th rounds she had seven losses in 8 games, with most of this period Nando de Colo not playing due to injury.
But these were not just losses.
The Turks also suffered defeats from the teams at the bottom of the table: 42 points in Barcelona, 37 in Kaunas, 22 against Villarban, 20 in Madrid, 18 against Tesconia and 26 against Alba Berlin.
Fener plummeted to the bottom of the table and seemed to have finished her playoff story.
Igor Kokushkov's chair began to sway.
And the upheaval, not to mention the shock that the team went through in the summer seemed to have failed miserably.
When a coach the size of Zelimir Obradovich leaves after 7 years, it's like an earthquake.
And when the team also has to undergo a major change in the staff, not least because of significant economic cuts, it is not simple at all.
Godorich. Responsible for the big change // Photo: IPI
But Kokushkov, who returned to European basketball after 20 years in the NBA (mostly as an assistant coach), did not give up.
And sometimes one change makes a big difference and that can be said about his return to Marco Judoric's club after two years in the best league in the world and the effect was immediate.
Two key players remained this season despite the turnaround and were supposed to hold the team on their shoulders - Nando de Colo and Ian Wesley.
These are two who knew a mediocre season last year and the opening of the current season was not convincing.
But recently they have come back to themselves in a big way.
Wesley and De Colo present basketball as in the big years when there were two of the best players on the continent.
Wesley for example had six games in which he scored in single digits until the 13th round.
In the six consecutive wins he has 14.3 points at 71 percent for two and he looks light and active defensively.
De Colo has recently moved on to managing the game and looks different.
With such a base everything has changed.
The team started to play in coordination and great flow (in five of the victories they gave 23 assists or more), players found their place and confidence returned.
Instead of being defeated she began to defeat (26 on Panathinaikos, 20 on Basconia, 22 on Villarban).
The winning streak puts them very close to the top eight.
Now she is also bringing in another player who will strengthen the weak point on the rebound - Kyle O'Quinn with a resume of 8 seasons in the NBA.