Summary: Hapoel Tel Aviv won 73:103 over Shalonsk and Rzolav (Sport 1)
1. An outstanding rebounding team?
we?!
There is nothing more frustrating in the life of a sports team than injuries;
Plans go awry, balances are broken and concern for friends increases.
But sometimes, precisely the shortcomings of players - as important as they are - help the coaches to reshuffle the cards, and carry out a reorganization that in a normal situation they would not have the courage to do.
Maccabi Tel Aviv without Alex Poithers is a less deep team than Maccabi Tel Aviv with him.
And if from the beginning it was the worst defensive rebounding team in the Euroleague this season, logic says that the problem will only get worse without him.
And here, the opposite happened.
Last week they beat Valencia, not only in points, but also in rebounds;
And last night (Tuesday) they beat Olympia Milan - and really beat them in the boards area.
25:38 It's nice for the yellows to rebound.
Even more than nice, this is their biggest victory in this area this season (besides the 26:40 at home over Olympiakos).
But the essential change happened in the defense.
Until a week ago, Oded Ketch's team took control of only 57% of the balls missed by its opponents.
Against Valencia, she picked up 73% of the rebounds that fell in her territory, and yesterday she increased it to 84%.
In these two games, the Spaniards and Italians combined 12 offensive rebounds;
Bayern Munich had 14 of them in one night against them.
As soon as Poithers was removed from the tombstone, Maccabi Tel Aviv lost depth, inches, defensive ability as well as playing intelligence in the front line (what will happen, Josh Niebo, what will happen?).
But from the moment he was shut down, there was no interior player left to be sent to islands in defense of the opposing guards, leaving the paint quite exposed;
More players were forced to hunker down and fight for those rebounds;
And yes, the outfield players also started to put effort into the field (four for Jaylen Adams and five for Lorenzo Brown in Milan).
Then, when the tempo drops, and the number of second chances of the opponent drops, it is much more difficult for the opposing stars to issue displays of purpose against Maccabi Tel Aviv.
In the first eight games this season, eight players reached more than 20 index points against the Yellows;
In the last five games there wasn't even one of those.
In the 13th cycle, he already crossed the quota of minutes of last season.
Roman Sorkin (Photo: Liron Moldovan)
2. Eliyahu 2013, Sussman 2019, Sorkin 2022
Maccabi has not yet found the ultimate forward line for it under the existing conditions.
Jake Cohen, who showed sparks against Valencia, started with five and provided solidity that prevented the usual collapse in the first minutes;
Jarel Martin, who started the game last week with the most comfortable misses of his career, came up this time as a substitute - and when the pressure was not on him he played much better;
And the best minutes from a team point of view were precisely when Bonzie Coulson was placed in the power forward position, and besides the disadvantage in mass he gave his teammates a significant advantage in athleticism and dynamism.
But wait.
Maccabi didn't find an ultimate front line?
The previous paragraph has become somewhat outdated, when one suddenly remembers the Sorkin novel - of which there is no ultimate.
The first round in the EuroLeague has not yet ended, and he has already crossed the quota of minutes he received throughout last season (193 compared to 183);
And in Money Time he was Ketch's first center (eight points in the last six minutes).
And if all this is not enough, then here is a statistic for the progressives courtesy of Dor Livnat: for the third time in the last decade, an Israeli player (you know, one who grew up in the youth divisions in Israel and grew up in the national teams, etc.) leads the Yellows in the index in away wins in the Euroleague.
Lior Eliyahu did it in 2013 against Besiktas, to Yuval Zusman it happened in 2019 against CSKA Moscow, and this time it was Sorkin's turn in Milan.
As long as number 9 establishes his position as an anchor (who would have believed before the start of the season that these words would be written), It doesn't matter at all who the second tallest will be next to him. Sometimes it could be Martin, and sometimes Coulson, and even Cohen, and sometimes Nebo. It might be harder against Toku Shanglia and Mam Jatay, and it might not be enough against Sasha and Zenkov and Mustafa Pal or under their thick arms of Gershon Yabusla and Eddie Tavares, but Eliyahu's hand does not grow the chin of the future - but the chin of the present.
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3. Slow, lackluster, stressed and patterned
13 minutes and 32 seconds to the end of the game, Billy Baron gave Milan a promising lead of 47:57.
And there, as befits a team in a terrible crisis, stressed and full of mournful thoughts - not to mention suicidal (in sporting terms!) - she performed a magnificent harkiri.
In the next nine minutes, she hit 1 of 10 from the field, allowing her opponent to run, grab, score, dance, and above all, gain confidence that gave her a boost to victory.
Maccabi Tel Aviv flew to 0:12 and 5:22, evoking a sense of déjà vu in the minds of the Italians.
Less than a week ago, they had the exact same lead, 54:64 over Panathinaikos in Ouaka, in the fourth quarter - and lost.
It's quite sad to see how the magic of Ettore Messina has expired, who is in the deepest crisis of his career.
During 25 years of coaching, from 1989 to 2014, he only once fell into a streak of three losses in one of the European Cups;
In the last two and a half years this has happened to him five times.
The current streak already stands at nine, and is higher than any other bad period he could imagine.
Milan's basketball is slow, formulaic and horribly lackluster.
It is true that she is missing her anchor, Chavon Shields, but even without him she should be worth much more;
Gigi Datuma could contribute his experience in such difficult situations;
And the absence of Kevin Pangos doesn't help either, although even with him it looked bad and lost quite a bit - and it is appropriate to present the question here: in light of the fact that his peak period amounted to half a huge season at Zenit St. Petersburg, could this be one of the biggest overtimes in European basketball?
In the past week, the phrase "body language" was mentioned many times in the context of local basketball.
Ketch lamented the body language of his players in the loss to Bnei Herzliya, everyone who watches Maccabi lamented Ketch's body language in every situation, Hapoel Tel Aviv fans realized that something bad was happening to their team when they watched the body language of Jacob Brown since the arrival of Chinano Onuaku ( Be healthy, Jacob. That's the most important thing.)
All this talk seems like a luxury, when you look at Milan for several consecutive minutes - and especially at the pressure that the coach exerts and paralyzes them, as if it is not an experienced and decorated group that has gathered from all the ends of the top.
4. An away win?
Come on, don't get carried away
For 68 days, since the start of the season, Maccabi Tel Aviv waited for its first away victory.
This is the longest wait she has ever experienced.
But the truth is that in light of history, it is not certain that a visit to the Mediolanum Forum in Milan can be considered an away game for this club.
sport
basketball
Euroleague and European basketball
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Maccabi Tel Aviv in basketball
Roman Sorkin