Maccabi Tel Aviv will continue its Euroleague season tomorrow (Thursday, 21:05) when it hosts Onyx Kazan in the 14th round. The Yellows come into the game with a balance of seven wins and six losses, having lost four of the last five games, but with an excellent home balance of five wins from six games. Kazan, on the other hand, comes in with the same balance, but has only played five away games and won two of them.
Maccabi Tel Aviv’s bad period did not stop with the Euroleague losses and continued this week with the defeat in the league game in Ness Ziona, which only added to the feeling that the team is in a bad direction. Maccabi believe that at home against Kazan they are able to play different basketball, and better, but know that it is not going to be easy at all. Roman Sorkin will continue to be absent due to a finger injury and Ziv will return to the team squad in the Euroleague.
Maccabi’s key is again in the defensive game, with the Yellows trying to slow down the opponent as they did in the dramatic loss in Madrid last week, and to do so they need to stop a team that plays very team basketball and American style reminiscent of Maccabi, with no less than five players from the United States strengthening Kazan’s squad: Isaiah Kenan, Lorenzo Brown, John Brown, Jarl Bentley and O. Jay Mayo, alongside Croatian Mario Zonia, Nigerian Tonya Jakiri and Italian Marco Spiso.
Coach Yannis Sapropoulos said at the press conference ahead of the game: “After five consecutive weeks of flying we are coming home, this is the first week we are not flying and we only have a home game. We are excited to have our fans in a full hall, want to defend home and fight for this victory for many reasons – To get back to a good result, we play against a team that is fighting with us in the table, and we have to play good basketball against a very offensive and defensive team, they have players who on a good day can score 25 and 30 points, and our defense is very important. And attack them. “
The Greek continued: “This is a tough opponent who fights every game. They have players who know how to save and also some great shots. Kenan has a great shot, John Brown is a great keeper, the prostitute is very talented. It is not easy to play against us here, but we will have to be focused to force the style “Because all groups can make it difficult for us, including Kazan.”
On his criticism of the players at the end of the loss to Nes Ziona: “We need to be more prepared for the Israeli league games. We have the right mentality for the game against Real Madrid, so the intention was not for the whole last month. “We did not crash like against Olympiacos. A game like this can happen once a season. I do not think we should look at all games the same way. I did not mean we have a mental problem. In the Euroleague anything can happen, Kazan has won five consecutive games before its recent losses.”
On the decline in ability recently: “There was a stage where we played very well, recently we lost some games even though we played well in some of them. We played a lot outside, so we need the victory to regain confidence because that is what will bring back the good ability, and so we will improve week by week. We know we will return to the best of our ability. “