The final scene of the EuroLeague regular season was one of a kind.
After the dramatic victory over Real Madrid, in the stands of the Menorah Hall, Mivathim celebrated the promotion to the playoffs from fifth place, and among the applause for the players, a special chapter was dedicated to one who knows very well the loving embrace from the crowd at the hands of Eliyahu.
What was so natural for Oded Ketch as a player at Maccabi Tel Aviv, became far from obvious as a coach.
But at Gate 11 they insisted on calling him to come, they went back to singing "Oded the king of Israel" to him like in those days, and it seems that the suspicion and coolness with which he was received was finally removed.
"Between the fans, the coaches and the players, there is a relationship with feelings, and it is something that is built. In my eyes, it is charming," Ketch explains in a special interview with Walla!
Sports ahead of the opening of the quarter-final series tomorrow (Tuesday, 21:15) in Monaco.
"Everyone comments to me that I'm not smiling, but the audience felt me. I'm not one to go to the stands for the first victory, because I don't want the opposite to happen. I arrived as a kind of default, and I was under the magnifying glass of many people, some of them inside the club. It's probably It's the same with the audience, and as far as I'm concerned, the audience is never wrong, even if they curse you. I act the way I feel at that moment."
- and it exploded precisely after the victory over Real.
There was a feeling in the hall that you had done something special.
"There was something in this victory. We already had tremendous victories over Olympiakos, Monaco, Fenerbahçe, Anadolu Efes. This game did not determine our promotion, but I received 400 messages. It was different and special."
"Even as an underdog we expect to win, and after every loss we have a disappointment. It's okay that we feel equal to Monaco, we play basketball well enough to be in this place. But when you come into the series without the home advantage, and the first two games in Monaco, you can't be a favorite. If The home team was on our side, I wouldn't say we are an underdog."
"He knew why I was asking and was open and not politically correct."
Wade Baldwin with Lorenzo Brown (Photo: Danny Maron)
In recent weeks, apart from the results on the floor, most of the leaders of Maccabi Tel Aviv's success are reaping the rewards.
The contracts of Lorenzo Brown, Wade Baldwin and Roman Sorkin have been extended, John DiBartholomew has also concluded, and soon similar announcements are expected to be made about the stay of Bonzie Coulson and Jeral Martin.
And what about the coach, who led these players to record seasons?
The question mark around it was not allowed.
"There has to be a special reason to make a statement," Ketch refers to the situation leniently.
"According to my contract, I need to win the championship in addition to advancing to the Euroleague playoffs."
- Shocks have already happened here after losing a championship.
"I don't feel that the championship or the cup is more important than the Euroleague, absolutely not. I don't feel that the club thinks like that. The Euroleague ends before the league, and it's a great thing to be a part of this thing. Think about who didn't enter the top eight. It's a great achievement. I'm happy that the Israeli league brings Successes in Europe, and as we saw in the final of the State Cup, the championship will be quite a challenge. We are a different team in the league, although now it is more balanced."
- Do you feel at home here?
"Today I feel more at home. It's natural. Bonzi also feels more at home than in his first game, and so does Jarl. I haven't been discounted for a long time because I'm Oded Ketch. The last thing I'd like to feel is that I'm here because of my past."
- even though you came by default, as you set it up?
"I was waiting for an opportunity in the Euroleague, and probably Maccabi Tel Aviv was one of the options. I knew there might be such an option, certainly after they talked to me a few months before. If there had been an offer for a year and a half [after the dismissal of Yanis Spropoulos], I would have taken it. I knew anyway That I take a certain risk, not in the easiest place, and not always in the easiest situation. I knew I was a kind of default, and that I had to prove myself. I preferred to do it from the beginning of the season and build a path, build something that expresses the basketball I want to play."
- Do you feel that you have already penetrated the loop called "Euroleague Coaches Club"?
"In my opinion, I've been there for five years. Every coach has his own way. There are those who break in late, there are those who succeed from the first moment. For me, it's built like a game of Tetris. Things work out, you gather experiences and an internal process is created for me after which I felt cohesive. Yes , consolidated is the word. It happened after Hapoel Eilat. It was clear to me that I was ready, and that if I had the opportunity I would take it."
"He is like a player-coach, I use him a lot."
Ketch with Guy Panini (Photo: Danny Maron)
Without trying to predict how the series with Monaco will develop, and how this Maccabi Tel Aviv season will end, the list of players who are going to stay illustrates the essential difference between the team that was built last summer and the years before it;
For the first time after a long period, the yellows have a significant skeleton that should carry them forward and actually make the upcoming break relatively quiet.
When you look at the personnel changes that the club has gone through to understand what has changed, it is hard to ignore David Blatt's response as the chairman of the professional committee. On the eve of Independence Day, while the players will go up to warm up in Monaco, he will light a torch at the official ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. "For me, to welcome David for the whole
summer And sitting with him from eight in the morning until eight in the evening, it was an experience.
He is not physically here for the whole year, but the month we built the team was inspiring, and I get a lot of encouragement from him."
- How involved is he in your day-to-day life?
"He is very involved, and I consult with him. When he is in Israel, he comes first to practice and leaves last. He is always with us in the training room. Every minute with him is great. Even when he is in the US, the cameras are opened for him in the hall and he watches the training.
He is committed and came to support, and I won."
"To sit with him every day in the summer from morning to evening, it was an experience."
David Blatt (Photo: Danny Maron)
- What was your degree of involvement in building the group?
"It was quite obvious to me that if a new coach was brought in, they would want to adapt the players to him. Many signatures were in front of me. Nikola [Vicic], Avi [Evan] and Yair [Shabach] had already decided on a certain direction. Alex Poithers, Josh Nibo, Bonzi and Darren Hilliard were pretty closed. I was surprised and happy. I don't need to be convinced about Alex as tall, and I was happy to see dominant guards in the options we had, including Mike James and Nick Kalathis, and of course Wade and Lorenzo were selected."
- When you signed Brown and Baldwin, did you already see how it was going to connect?
"Before that, it was clear that the team was in the hands of Scotty Wilvkin, and the advantage over two leading guards is something big. But even here there were a few concerns. It's not something we're used to. When we checked on Wade, some of the information we received about him raised question marks about his character. Here too You have to give credit to David, who brought him to Europe and coached him at Olympiakos. It wasn't a very successful season, but he gave confidence to the system and to me personally that if we could get to Wade and touch him, we would succeed with him. "I had a phone conversation with Wade
.
In many cases, these calls do not yield too much.
They are very formal.
But Wade is real and direct, he knew why I was asking every question and was open and not politically correct.
He is very intelligent, and I had a good feeling.
He expressed his great desire to succeed, and that is mainly what was decisive in the end."
"Even as an underdog we expect to win. It's okay for us to feel equal to Monaco."
Mike James (Photo: GettyImages, Nikola Krstic/MB Media)
- You started the season with a fantastic balance, but you didn't look good.
"In the beginning we were able to scrape together the victories, and that was important to gain time and stay in business. I believed in the character of the players and what was built here, and the way we trained. I knew that at some point it would come together, but the truth is that I was surprised that it happened so quickly. Today it's easier for me to talk about it , but I also said this at the beginning of the season. There were teams built from scratch like us, including ones that won the Euroleague, with more experienced coaches than me and with higher budgets, and they didn't have immediate success. The expectation that everything would come together quickly - did us a bit of an injustice. But we didn't have promotions And extreme drops, we were in the top eight throughout the season."
- There was only one week when you were in a negative balance, and then - right after the loss to Bayern Munich - the news came out about your status.
"I don't read much, but it obviously got to me. It was exactly the big gap between the process we are experiencing and our belief in ourselves and the feeling that we are not satisfied and that it is not enough. This struggle was not easy."
- Have you lost confidence?
"I felt it in the air, and it wasn't fun, even though nothing official was said by the management. I knew that the narrative coming out was not what we were experiencing. In the Euroleague I'm kind of a rookie, but as a coach I'm not young at all, I've been through things. I had to find the confidence mine, to gather myself and find the strength from within, with the experience I gained. I got a lot of energy from the team and the players."
- You talked about it after one of the victories and caused a storm, when you actually stung the management and immediately afterwards you regretted it.
"Precisely after this trial, things opened up. The management also got the signal that I needed their strength, and from that day on they were there and gave me more confidence. You have to give them credit for being attentive to my difficulties, and realizing that more was needed, and since then they tried and succeeded in giving me more confidence ".
"I'm cohesive. I felt ready for the Euroleague already five years ago."
Oded Ketch (Photo: Kobi Eliyahu)
- Then came the loss to Hapoel Jerusalem in the cup final.
"This loss hurt. Beyond the result and the disappointment, and what it means to the audience and the club, it was a turning point where everyone realized that things would not come easily, not even in the league. It was a formative experience for me. Precisely from this loss, it was important for me to look straight ahead and take responsibility. This is one of those moments when something was built out of difficulty, and we came out of it strengthened."
- What happened after the loss?
"We didn't have many team talks this season, but there was one after the cup final and it led to a good reaction in the team. I also had a conversation with Wade and Lorenzo, just the three of us, from which we came away with insights. And there was another conversation, which I regret not having before the final, with Jake Cohen.
"There were moments when I knew I could get more from Jake, but part of the process of bringing in less experienced players, like Jarl or Bonzi, came at his expense in a way. He was kind of wronged at times. The biggest miss with him was in the Cup. He was missing Something in my communication in front of him in the week leading up to the final. We sat face to face afterwards. He is unusual in his character."
- Beyond Brown and Baldwin, are there any players who took leadership and don't get enough credit?
"Guy Pennini is a type of player-coach, and I get a lot of help from him. He can't play many minutes, but in his silence he gives a lot to the team. There are also Jake and Jondi, who did not surprise me. From the moment they felt significant, they They started to be more verbose."
"I regret not having the conversation with him before the cup final."
Jake Cohen (Photo: Danny Maron)
- After the defeat in Monaco came the big connection, and you went on a crazy run of 1:7 in the Euroleague.
"Part of Maccabiism is that somehow, on the way, on the flight, you get the feeling that you're going to win, even if it's not objective and not really realistic, and it doesn't matter how many injuries you had in the team that week. And then, if you lose, it ends in a big disappointment. The loss in Monaco was different, because We all felt that it was getting stressful. The feeling in the dressing room was similar to the cup final, that something bad had just happened. Then again you have to dig and go deep, lift the players' heads. We reacted well to this situation as well. Even though we are a young team, and not always experienced, thanks to The character of the players, we didn't have a crisis of one or two months."
- What went wrong with Hilliard?
"There was nothing personal. Sometimes things don't work out at the match level, in basketball. It can happen with any player. I don't test expectations based on the amount of the contract. I have a basketball team and I want to use it the best way I see. He would like to play more , and that's what there is."
- but there was also the suspension at the beginning of the road.
"There was one time when he tweeted something, and we decided that he would not go into the game. The decision not to take him was at the level of a message to the whole team. You have to keep everyone focused on being friends and positive, and in the end, more than defense and attack, our advantage is the healthy dressing room. It was important to me That everyone will see the good of the team in the game, in the dressing room and when he goes on Twitter. My door is open, I wanted to help him, and he knows it. He didn't take it personally. I want him to succeed like everyone in the team."
- Coaches are always worried and talk about clichés from game to game.
Honestly, do you allow yourself to dream of winning the Euroleague?
"I dream. I dreamed even when I wasn't coaching Maccabi Tel Aviv. We want to go as far as possible."
sport
Sports flashers
Tags
Oded Ketch
Maccabi Tel Aviv in basketball