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Ettore Messina praises Maccabi Tel Aviv: "She is better than her balance sheet shows"
After a three-week break, the Yellows return to the Euroleague and are hosted by hot Milan.
The goal: to stop the Italians' offensive flow
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Maccabi Tel Aviv in basketball
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Thursday, 18 February 2021, 08:41
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After a break of three weeks, Maccabi Tel Aviv will return to the Euroleague tonight (Thursday, 21:45, live broadcast on Sport 5) when it hosts Italy at Armani Milano.
The Yellows come into the game after the postponement of two home games against Anadolu Efes and the Moscow Khimki due to the closure of Ben Gurion Airport, and with a balance of 10 wins against 12 losses they know that every loss will keep them very far from the playoffs.
The team landed yesterday evening in Milan when Omri Caspi, who had his first full training session in more than a month yesterday, will not play in the upcoming game either.
TJ Klein is expected to join the squad for the first time, and may even win the first few minutes in order to expand the rotation under the baskets.
The team is optimistic that if they manage to slow down Milan's attacking game, they will be able to register an away victory in the hall where they have won only once since the big playoff series in 2014.
"We are happy to return to the Euroleague after a small break that was forced on us," said Oz Blazer, who was the Yellows' outstanding player in recent games in Israel. "We have good team momentum and a good feeling. It's a super tough game, we have to fight for the victory. Of not easy games, and this is the first step.In the cup we had a problem in intensity but do not think it was related to preparation, in previous games we were in high intensity which made the games easy.We all understand the importance of the game and how much fighting and preparation will affect. "We did at the end of the last cup game and like we played in the last game in the league."
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Excited to return to the Euroleague.
Dibertolomao (Photo: Udi Citation,.)
Captain John Dibertolomao added: "I am excited to return to the Euroleague after a short break. Milan have been playing very good basketball recently, we lost to them a few months ago and we are waiting to return to play against them. The previous game against them is behind us, we deserve to win that game, I hope we can change "The story this time. I think I'm getting better, but we are in a completely different place than we were then, we have another 12 games in the Euroleague to enter the playoffs. The games in Israel have kept our pace. We expect to return to the Euroleague."
While Maccabi Tel Aviv dreams of a heroic comeback and entry to the playoffs, Milan want to gain the home advantage in the quarterfinals on the way to reaching the Final Four.
The Italians, led by coach Ettore Messina give a lot of respect to the Yellows.
"We meet a team that is much better than its balance sheet shows," the coach said ahead of the game, "They lost a lot of games because of bad luck. They are very organized and have depth and physicality. Obviously this is an important game for us and we will reach it with a lot of confidence. "We will have to pay attention to the small details from the beginning. We are happy that positioning is back, but we will play without Jeff Brooks and Zack Lydie, we hope we will get them in the coming weeks."
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