[ad_1]
Maccabi, who are visiting Lithuania this week, are one of the most declining clubs of the year. When the Euroleague regular season was interrupted in March last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tel Aviv club had already secured a ticket to the playoffs.
Meanwhile, this season the team, which won 11 of 28 matches and was ranked 14th, was left with miniature arithmetic chances. Even if the “yellow” wins the remaining six games, he would have to get many favorable results in the duel of the best teams.
And the task of winning six games in a row seems unattainable, especially since Maccabi have never won more than two games in a row throughout the entire Euroleague season.
The representatives of Tel Aviv aggravated their situation in the first part of the season. In October, the basketball players of this team won only 2 of the 6 games, and even then all their attempts to recover were unsuccessful.
A small spark of hope was ignited in December when Maccabi won 4 of 5 matches and even managed to beat Barcelona on the road. However, the increase was brief and insignificant.
“We want to win as many games as possible before the end of the season. Then we will see if we have enough victories. It will probably not be enough,” Maccabi manager Ioan Sfairopoulos admitted a few days ago.
Maccabi experienced almost the most pleasant moments of the season during the first game with Žalgiris. On November 12, Tel Aviv basketball players crushed Kaunas residents 85:57 on their field. It was Žalgiris’ biggest loss this season and Maccabi’s only win by more than 12 points.
In the rival arena, Žalgiris scored the first 4 points of the match, but fell apart in the first half, which he lost at 14:24. After the second half, the Kaunas team fell behind by an astronomical difference of 30 points 23:53.
Thomas Walkup (12 points), Marius Grigonis and Joffrey Lauvergne (11 each) played more effectively in the Kaunas team, Tyler Dorsey (16), Chris Jones (15) and Dragan Bender (11) played in the team of Tel Aviv.
The “Yellow” then broke the chain of failures in the duel with “Žalgiris”. Before that, the Lithuanian team has won four times in a row since the beginning of 2018.
In Kaunas, Maccabi last won in October 2016, and since then the people of Žalgiris have outdone the guests of Israel in their arena three times in a row.
However, Tel Aviv coach G.Sfairopoulos believes that the November events can also be repeated in Kaunas.
“The people of Žalgiris are struggling with relapses, therefore we are expecting a difficult and costly fight. We have to be focused, play with energy, adapt to the rhythm of Kaunas and compete very well.
For us, this is an opportunity to get back on the path of success in the tournament, to return to positive results. We are not satisfied with the current situation, so we will try to finish the season as best we can, ”said I. Spairopoulos before Thursday’s meeting.
