At Maccabi Tel Aviv they identified "worrisome signs".

Ketch: "There were good minutes"

The Yellows lost to Milan after losing an early double-digit lead, the defense was far from impressive: "We will have to take many steps forward in the next two weeks until the start of the Euroleague", they admitted at the club

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09/24/2022

Saturday, September 24, 2022, 08:53

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Danny Avdia at Washington's media open day ahead of the season opener (from the Wizards' official website)

Last night (Friday), Maccabi Tel Aviv recorded its third loss in preparation out of four games, when it was defeated by Olympia Milan 80:71 in the semifinals of the Yanakopoulos tournament.

The yellows will play tonight against Anadolu Efes, who lost the second game in the tournament to the host Panathinaikos.

Maccabi Tel Aviv actually opened the game with a storm and led with a double-digit advantage 12:24 during the first quarter.

At this stage, Oded Ketch's players were stopped, seemed to lack ideas and stuck, and Milan raced to a 32:37 lead at the break.

The yellows did not recover in the second half and saw the opponent run away and increase the advantage to double digits, when only good minutes in the last quarter prevented Maccabi from ending the game with a defeat.

Darren Hilliard led four scorers in double figures with 18 points.

"This is an important and good game for us," concluded coach Oded Ketch, "we lost and it's not fun, but it was a very important game in terms of our preparation. We played against one of the best teams in Europe, a team with continuity that got stronger in players, even though they were missing two leading players. There were good minutes and good things to take from this game, with this intensity, but there are things we will also have to improve. This is the process, I'm glad we played against a team at this level in preparation and that's why we came to this tournament. Another step forward in the process to improve, there's still a lot of work."

Still looks rusty.

Jarel Martin (photo: official website, paobc)

The team pointed out that too many players are still far from good form, with Jarl Martin, Josh Niebo and Bonzie Coulson being mentioned, among others, three players with key roles in the team, who looked rusty and out of sorts last night.

"We are taking things in proportion, but there are worrying signs. We wanted to look good for more minutes in the game," said one of Maccabi Tel Aviv's staff, "We are less than two weeks before the start of the Euroleague season, we will have to take many steps forward during this time."

Lorenzo Brown, who watched the game from Tel Aviv, will join the team's training on Sunday after it returns from Athens, and will be available to Oded Ketch in the quarter-finals of the Winner Cup against Hapoel Gilboa/Galil on Tuesday, but as of now it is not clear whether the professional team will choose to risk such a game.

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