Joy in Maccabi Tel Aviv after the 72:84 victory last night (Thursday) over Valencia in the 27th round of the Euroleague. The victory left Yannis Sapropoulos’ team a chance (albeit a small one) to qualify for the playoffs, but also a taste of missing out, as too many close games ended in a loss and the situation could easily have been different. Due to the fact that the away games against Bayern Valencia away the Yellows were in a great position to win, as well as the home game against Milan, the team again mentioned that except for the away games in Madrid, Milan and Fenerbahce, the champion was strong in all its other meetings at the factory.
The 11th victory of the season brought with it again a reminder in the case of Omri Caspi. The forward, who finished the game with 14 points in 15 minutes, gave another glimpse into how things could have shown with him regularly on the floor. Among the team, they explained that Caspi’s advantage is the ability to run the pass attack and deliver very well, which reduces the load on the guards who can get the ball along the halfway line.
With Caspi, Maccabi wanted better and as happened last year, this season is also the player who can and operates the domestic players in the best way. This was very noticeable last year with both Othello Hunter and Tariq Black, as well as this season, which directly affects Ante Žižić’s ability.
At the same time, the story of the game was, most of all, related to Scotty Wilbkin. True, Dragon Bender may have provided one of his best games this season (especially on the defensive side) and Tyler Dorsey completed 37 in 48 hours, but Wilbkin, for the second time this season, finished a game without points. Wilbkin did not hit the floor at all in the fourth quarter, which is considered a very rare spectacle. The club’s environment clarified that there is no bookkeeping on the part of the coach: “Tyler was in a very good game today and the team that produced the advantage was with John Dibertolomao and Chris Jones.”
Beyond the fact that it was clear that Valencia would focus on Wilbkin, as quite a few teams did this season, Maccabi gave credit to Sapropoulos. The Yellows explained that Dibertolomao was preferred as the matchup with Martin Hermanson was superior to that with Sam Van Rossum, as the latter left Valencia in the game in the third quarter, the quarter in which Scotty spent almost half of his minutes on the floor.
In fact, in the third quarter, Van Rossom was the player with the second-highest plus-minus index in the team (1+) and the 16th index, he finished the fourth quarter with the 11th index and the plus-minus index of 7-, the third highest. Hermanson, who nearly doubled his game minutes, in the fourth quarter alone finished the game with a 9-plus-minus index. Not for the first time this season Sapropoulos was asked about the playing minutes of one player or another, and this time too he replied that the players who played were the ones who are in the best playing shape. Maccabi refused to be stressed by the rare event and clarified “Wilbkin is our leader. It is clear that he is not kicking out of his game.”
“In the first half they took a lot of rebounds on offense, but after the break we were good on defense, we ran and they couldn’t stop us. I want to congratulate my teammates and the coaching staff for a good job tonight,” he said. Ante Žižić At the end. Chris Jones Referring to the feeling of missing out on the painful losses experienced this season: “It’s hard and we think about it all the time, the fact that as a team we were inconsistent and unfocused on details and playing according to the game plan the coaches give us every night, it is reflected in our balance. That’s where we are, but I feel it’s a lesson for life and we just need to learn from it. ”
Tyler Dorsey He added: “I just played hard. We had to win, recently we experienced negative moments and it feels good to win. You never know what’s going to happen, we’re with our backs to the wall so we have to win every game we can, it’s good to win a game with the fans here “.