Maccabi Tel Aviv will host tonight (Tuesday, 21:05, live broadcast on5SPORT) Olympiacos, and judging by past cases, this game too may go to the final minutes, just like the previous encounter in Piraeus.
In recent years’ almost every visit of the Greeks to the temple is decided in the closing seconds: in the season 12/13 Vasilis Spanoulis set a winning basket with a score of 78:77, on 17/18 Norris Cole missed the buzzer (69:68), a year later Scotty Wilbkin stitched a winning basket Virgos Printzis missed the buzzer (65:64), and last season Wilbkin again with a three-pointer (71:70). In general, eight of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s 11 home games against Olympiacos in the current format of the Euroleague were decided by a difference of 6 points or less and only two of them with a double-digit gap (average gap: 5.2 points).
The Yellows will have to face some challenges in tonight’s game. Costas Slokas is in excellent shape, and in the last two victories of his team he recorded 24.5 points and 73% for three, compared to 9.6 points and 34% before the season. However, Slokas’ last visit to the arena is one that the Greek will want to forget: it was his only Euroleague game in the last three years in which he did not score a single point. He missed all 5 of his shots from the field and finished with an index of 1- in the loss of Fenerbahce to Maccabi Tel Aviv last year.
On the Maccabi side, it will want to continue to get good output from Tyler Dorsey, but it is desirable that alongside Wilbkin and not at his expense. It is known that in most of the games in which Wilbkin was the leading scorer, Maccabi Tel Aviv lost, compared to Dorsey, who scored almost 15 points per game, along with 49% for three wins. In losses, Dorsey declines to 7.5 points and only 27% to 3.
* Data courtesy of Uri Savir
