Friday night, Maccabi Tel Aviv lost a game that they could’ve won (and some would argue should’ve won) to remain winless away from home, in its round 8 Euroleague clash against Partizan Belgrade, falling 96-88. Maccabi, in a game in which they led for a majority of the contest, couldn’t hold on when it mattered. Maccabi was on control from the get-go and it wasn’t until 6 seconds left in the third quarter when Partizan took the lead for the first time as the hosts finished with a strong fourth quarter to take the win.

Zach Leday (21 points and 7 rebounds), Dante Exum (21 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists) and ex-Maccabi player Mathias Lessort (16 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists) led the way for the home side, while Wade Baldwin IV (23 points, 4 rebounds and 7 assists), Bonzie Colson (17 points and 4 rebounds) and Alex Poythress (16 points) led the scoring for the visitors.

Here are some of my thoughts from the game.

The Good: The first half
Maccabi started its previous road games very poorly in its losses against Fenerbahçe (32-46 at halftime) and Baskonia (42-63 at halftime). Last night, Maccabi came out strong, scoring the first 6 points of the game and while they couldn’t break away from Partizan, they were consistent enough to prevent them from ever taking the lead in the first 20 minutes as the yellow and blue took a 50-49 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Among the highlights for the yellow and blue faithful in the first half were some delicious dunks from Poythress (who was being fed the ball well from his guards), as well as going 57% from beyond the arc, including 4/4 from Darrun Hilliard (14 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists) and 2/3 from Colson.

“We started the game well,” Maccabi coach Oded Katash said. “I liked the energy. It’s not an easy place to play with that amazing crowd, and we came out really focused and aggressive.”

Katash continued, “I like the way that the team came to play, in an atmosphere which is not easy, with lots of noise, we stayed focused and we were calm. Unfortunately, it was not enough.”

The Bad: Rebounding
Bad rebounding has been a recurring theme for Maccabi this season, and today was no exception. Partizan won the overall rebound count with 33 (11 offensive and 22 defensive) to Maccabi’s 24 (8 offensive and 16 defensive), but the story is even more worrying for Katash when looking at the three bigs for each side. For Maccabi, Poythress, Roman Sorkin (10 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists) and Josh Nebo (0 points off the bench in 10:40) combined for a total of 6 rebounds for the game, Partizan’s Leday, Lessort and Alen Smailagic (9 points off the bench in 4:44) combined for 17 rebounds.

“The number that’s really important to us is the rebounding,” Katash said. “They really held us over there, they got the second chance. In a tight game like that, those cheap points win the game.”

When asked about what went wrong in the game, Katash reiterated: “The problematic number for me is again that we lost the rebounds. This is something that we need to improve for ourselves – to be more aggressive. In a close game, that’s what will make the difference.”

Ultimately, it came down to a combination of more aggression at times under the basket and better positioning. This is definitely something that Maccabi will need to improve going forward if they want this season to be successful.

The Ugly: The beginning of the fourth quarter
After Partizan took the lead at the end of the third quarter through free throws from Lessort (who went a perfect 4/4 from the line), they came out at the beginning of the last quarter with more energy and looked hungrier than Maccabi for the win. Yam Madar (8 points and 1 assist) and Kevin Punter (13 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists) scored back-to-back 3-pointers for the hosts inside the first 65 seconds, giving them a 7 point lead.

Although Bonzie Colson scored back-to-back 2-pointers to get Maccabi to within 3 points, Exum then scored 2 for Partizan down at the other end and followed it up shortly after with a steal from Lorenzo Brown (8 points, 5 assists and 4 turnovers) who was caught a little too laidback bringing the ball down the court for Maccabi. After Exum dished the ball off to Leday for an easy 2-pointer, Partizan found itself up 79-72 with just under seven minutes left in the game.

At that point, while Maccabi kept fighting, they were never able to close to within less than 4 points and the home side with the help of the home crowd of 19,011 cheering them on from the stands, went on to win the quarter 27-20.
“In the end it comes to some individual skills,” Katash said. “They hit some three shots to keep the momentum. We kept fighting, it wasn’t enough in the end.”

“We failed to play a complete game,” Poythress added. “We had some lapses in the fourth, and they capitalized.”

Up Next: The derby and Olympiacos at home, and another trip to Belgrade
Maccabi’s Euroleague ledger is at .500 with 4 wins and 4 losses, however having already played 5 games at home and only 3 away and having lost their last 3 games, the pressure is on Katash to get his side back in the win column. Things don’t get easier for Maccabi, as they now have to back up the Friday night away game in Serbia with the first Winner League derby of the season against Hapoel Tel Aviv at Yad Eliyahu on Sunday night, a tough home game against the 6-2 Olympiacos on Tuesday night and another away game in Belgrade against a struggling 2-6 Red Star Belgrade side who won their first game under new head coach Dusko Ivanovic.

“It’s a tough week ahead of us,” Katash said. “We should keep our heads up, keep working hard, keep getting better, and that’s what we’ll try to do.”

While Maccabi did beat Hapoel less than a month ago, this is going to be a different-looking side: not only will include their star guard J’Covan Brown, who missed the Winner Cup final through injury, but it will be the first time this season that Hapoel will have five import players dress, after raising enough funds from fans for the club to be able to register five foreigners for Israeli league games instead of four. Maccabi’s big men may consider themselves lucky that Hapoel’s new signing Chinanu Onuaku, who returns to Israel after a short stint with Italian side Dimano Sassari, has not been listed for Hapoel. However, the Reds have had two weeks to prepare for the derby, with their 86-81 win over Hapoel Gilboa-Galil on November 6 being their last game in all competitions.

“We just want to make improvements,” Poythress said. “I know we have a tough week coming up, but we’ll take it one day at a time, one game at a time. We’ve got a tough derby game, so that’s our main focus right now.”