The 70-year-old king: Moti Arwasti interviews Miki Berkovich/Ahrle Weisberg, photography: Yotam Ronen, editing: Gilad Mann-Manheim
1. Berlin, Lulio corner
First quarter, 7:25 minutes.
Johannes Thiemann "runs away" Elba Berlin to 4:7.
This is her last advantage.
4:51 minutes.
Wade Baldwin completes a 0:11 run on the part of Maccabi Tel Aviv and becomes 7:15.
Second quarter, 8:56 minutes.
First loss for Maccabi in the game.
6:41 minutes.
The gap grows to 20 points.
2:09 minutes.
Alba reaches the penalty line for the first time.
Third quarter, 4:47 minutes.
The difference climbs to 30.
32 seconds.
Maccabi overtakes its seasonal points average.
Fourth quarter, 7:24 minutes.
Joe Thomason made his Euroleague debut.
3:00 minutes.
James Webb reaches the status of a player who gets a rest in Garbage Time.
2:12 minutes.
Maccabi registers a seventh foul (in the entire game!) and last for two points.
The split season in European basketball, between 2000 and 2001, is remembered badly to this day.
Maccabi Tel Aviv won the Superleague after victories over CSKA Moscow and Panathinaikos in the Final Four, while Virtus Bologna lifted the first Euroleague trophy at the end of a five-game final series against Basconia. And why is this season remembered badly? Because 44 teams claimed to play in two factories each of which he considered himself the most senior and most important; in the collective consciousness, Lulio's name was burned as a symbol of the misery of the undeserving participants.
On January 18, 2001, Maccabi went to the capital city of the Norrbotten district in Sweden and won an easy and frankly rather boring 68:113. Except for one game that ended in -60 difference against Aarhus in Denmark's Brondby in the qualifiers for the European Champions Cup in 1984 (leave, not counted), it was the yellows' highest away victory in Europe. 23 years have passed since then, four more continental trophies have been added to the wardrobe in the first Hebrew city since then - and yesterday (Thursday ) this team came close to the record as it has not come close at any point in the last generation.
Maccabi Tel Aviv defeated Elba Berlin 71:106 and stopped the hands at 35 points. This is their highest away victory in the Euroleague, and the third largest in the club's history (again, not including qualifiers). It is also the highest away win recorded this season in the factory.
And he's mostly getting things in order, because the yellows managed to erase themselves from this dubious summit with the 99:70 "home" defeat to Real Madrid, which didn't really happen at home.
Info: Maccabi Tel Aviv's highest away wins in Europe/Walla! system, Aharleh Weisberg
2. Are the leagues not important?
At least make the bottom teams pay a price
It is easy to underestimate a victory over such an opponent, and it is not impossible that certain disrespectful things will be brought up here later.
But the way in which the Israeli champion achieved this result is not obvious;
A small and weak group like Elba's sometimes manages to drag those who oppose it to its lowest level.
As an example, Barcelona lost in Berlin this season, as did Red Star Belgrade, Želgiris Kovna and Olimpia Milano.
Yanis Spropoulos' Maccabi surrendered to the Berliners two years ago.
I mean, in a long and grueling season, things like this can happen.
Before leaving for the break, with five losses in six games on his back, Oded Ketch admitted that his team is waiting for this short break like a child waiting for the big vacation.
And here, the kind-of-September-1st arrived, and the children of the class had an abbreviated day of adaptation in the basketball club of the instructor Israel Gonzalez.
The Euroleague is rightly awarded the status of the second best league in the world.
It is rightfully considered the most difficult and demanding league.
Many groups recruit buyers and investors, increase budgets, build halls and grow fans just to get a foot in the door and get into it.
At the base of the strategic thinking of the factory leaders, they try to ignore what is happening in the local leagues;
They have built an almost closed club, which appropriates the most senior teams (with the most fertile markets) and is ready to accommodate their momentary failures in the championship struggles to provide them with the safe ground to continue on their way.
In Sorkin's absence, he is the top power forward.
Against Alba it was enough.
James Webb/Official Site, Djordje Kostic, Dragan Tesic
Except that Alba, in her regular conduct, is enough for the occasion.
This is her fifth season in the Euroleague, and in none of them did she even fight for a ticket to the playoffs.
In 2021, it suffered the heaviest home loss (103:67 to Barcelona), also in 2023 (93:60 to Olympiakos) and starting now in 2024 as well.
When you look at the title table in Germany, a pretty amazing picture emerges: in the last four years, Elba won three championships, while Bayern Munich - the country's most senior representative in Europe - stood at zero during Andrea Trinchieri's tenure.
Scholarly explanation?
We will modestly and with a little shame admit that we do not have.
So if you have decided that the leagues are not a factor in determining the participants in the Euroleague, at least you will create a binding standard in your own arena;
In order to produce a high-quality, competitive and even more interesting factory, the teams that regularly populate the bottom (hey, hey, Villerban, we haven't forgotten you either) have to pay a price and make way for those who so badly want to enter, and can probably do it just as well.
If that happens, no one can afford to look like that.
do not miss
"We weren't interested in the money, we wanted to enjoy Dusty Hanas as a basketball player"
In social media there is playin: Fenerbahce in the lead, and where is Maccabi Tel Aviv?
Kevin Harvey: "In Holon they asked 'no matter what you do, just don't move to Jerusalem'"
Do not compromise on unsatisfactory sex: this is how you will improve performance - with an exclusive discount
You can underestimate (and come on, we underestimated), but they beat Barcelona this season.
Alba Berlin/GettyImages players, Inaki Esnaola
3. For the 7,328th time in his life
Maccabi Tel Aviv reaches the final stretch of the season armed with cautious optimism.
It's easy to mock the Premier League (you can discuss freezing relegations in a war season, but why in March? How dare you change the rules in the middle of the game? Come on, you earned the mockery honestly), but look at what five wins during the "long break" can do to the dynamics of a team .
Suddenly, basketball is more fluid, the players are fresher and more confident, the disappointing ones send sparks, and everything seems comfortable and above all more correct.
Roman Sorkin's injury caused forced changes in the arrangement of the cards.
Ketch's top two composition is no longer really relevant;
He will have a hard time teaming Josh Niebo and Hasiel Rivero together, because he will need each of them in the rest minutes of the other;
Jake Cohen, for the 7,328th time in his life, returns to the starting power forward position - and after extreme ups and downs throughout the season, Webb becomes the leading power forward.
Against Alba, it was enough for these two to score 21 points (100% for two, 80% from the field) from the weakest position in the group.
In the next games, Bonzie Coulson may also see more time in this slot, alongside three-guard formations, and it's not necessarily a bad idea.
In the first few minutes yesterday, when the game was still alive, Baldwin and Lorenzo Brown seemed to be looking for him, and he was dominant and was even sent - heaven forbid - for a post-up move or two.
At this point a year ago, after the loss in the final of the State Cup, the Yellows went on an impressive winning streak that pushed them up to fifth place in the Euroleague.
Are they able to produce a similar streak this season as well?
In terms of the opponents that await them in the coming weeks, it may be so;
Without the pampering shell of Yad Eliyahu, it is not sure that it would be so simple.
On a clear day, and with a little help from those above them, they could see themselves in contention for sixth place which leads directly to the playoffs.
More on the same topic:
Maccabi Tel Aviv in basketball
Alba Berlin