ONE System |
Disappointed Real players (Itzik Belnitsky)
The 74:75 victory yesterday (Thursday) over Real Madrid, arranged for Maccabi Tel Aviv a dream week in which it apparently secured a place in the Euroleague playoffs. For the Blancos it was a nightmare week, in which they twice lost a game they already had in their hands. Pablo Lasso’s players led 65:74 about six minutes to the end, but then “got into a complete blackout in front of a deadly finish by Maccabi”, Marca wrote.
In Spain, they analyzed Real’s crash in the closing minutes, but claimed errors of judgment in favor of the Yellows. “In the final minutes the referees missed two controversial incidents with a possible foul on Sergio Yul and a foul on Walter Tavares in the fight for the last ball, before it came to Yavosla, which were not burned,” it said. The second incident is of course the midfield ball that was stopped after Angelo Cloiaro snatched the ball from the formidable chin.
For 34 minutes Real Madrid played good basketball. Gershon Yavosla started boiling with 14 points in the first quarter, in the third quarter Thomas Hartl and Vincent Fourier joined and contributed theirs and Adam Hanga was there throughout the game with good defense and good penetration on offense. But then everything fell apart for Pablo Lasso, who hoped to leave Tel Aviv with a victory that would have guaranteed him second place in the Euroleague.
“Real is not able to kill the games and it costs them losses,” Marca analyzed the problem that Lasso will have to find a solution for. As against Andulo Zero last Tuesday, the Blancos’ blackout was complete. “Maccabi woke up and flew like a kamikaze and took advantage of every weakness in the Madrid defense. “Evans appeared with decisive shots, Wilbkin scored two free throws in the last minute and arranged a local victory that would not have made sense a few minutes earlier,” it was written.
