There’s no question that Maccabi Tel Aviv’s 94-78 win over Zalgiris was important, in fact critical if the Yellow & Blue wanted to keep their Euroleague playoff hopes alive. With three wins in a row after an 8 game slide that led into an unplanned COVID-19 break, Maccabi is back in the hunt in a very big way despite still finding themselves with a 10-11 record.

Prior to the break Ioannis Sfairopoulos’s sward was floundering and signing very fast into quicksand with a 7-11 record after 18 games that would mean Maccabi would probably need to go 11-5 over their final 16 games to find there way into the postseason with an 18-16 record. So far so good with 3 wins out of 3 and 13 games to go with their next matchup coming Thursday night at Bayern Munich in Germany. While Andrea Trinchieri’s squad fell at Barcelona, they have been dangerous of late with having won 4 out of their last five games prior to Tuesday’s loss.

Maccabi needs to win at Bayern as well to keep their hopes intact and it won’t be easy as it never seems to be in Munich.

However, what Maccabi does have going into the game is a rejuvenated James Nunnally who had a career high in points with 32 and efficiency rating at 38 in the win over Zalgiris. The swingman had struggled mightily this season both on and off of the court after having been out of Ioannis Sfairopoulos’s squad before the COVID stoppage as he looked to be on his way out of the club altogether with China as an option.

Nunnally also got into it with Iftach Ziv at one of the practices and was thrown under the bus by coach admitting that the indecent occurred at one of the press conferences to Nunnally’s dismay. But as they say let bygones be bygones and Nunnally as back in the good book after the break and returned after an injury to lead Maccabi to the huge win.

Interestingly enough, under who did Nunnally have his terrific game under? Not Sfairopoulos who was sidelined with COVID-19 but the club’s lead scout Avi Even who stepped in during the team’s time of need and boy did Nunnally ever help Even out. The doctor couldn’t have ordered a better performance if he tried to mix up some super duper concoction.

Scottie Wilbekin was also clicking on all cynliders hitting key shot after key shot while the team as a whole went 14/20 from long distance good for 70%. When a team hits those numbers, well usually you’re going to win the game and that was certainly the case.

The question is can Nunnally duplicate their performance again? Can he even give 50% of the showing the rest of the way?

In 19 gams this season Nunnally is scoring 13.5 points, grabbing 3.7 boards and dishing out 2.7 assists per game. Obviously that point average went way up after his 32-point performance but what Maccabi needs is more consistency from the one time Euroleague Champion.

There’s no question that Nunnally can be a game changer and maybe, just maybe Avi Even pressed the right buttons to get him going and can continue on his way back again under Sfairopoulos.

Now, Zalgiris isn’t exactly the top of the top and in fact they are the bottom of the bottom as they find themselves in last place with a 3-17 record. But a win is a win and if this was the game that Nunnally was able to get going, then that’s good news for Maccabi.

In the past Sfairopoulos had liked to start with a bigger player at the small forward position in the style of Angelo Caloiaro but over the past few games he made the switch to go with a shorter player and in this case Nunnally was the man. Is this the move that will send Maccabi on its way? Could be what works against one team won’t work that well against another.

Along with Nunnally’s stellar game, Scottie Wilbekin also played one terrific clash as the star guard scored what seemed to be an effortless 20 points in the win. Wilbekin didn’t have to take the game upon himself and play hero-ball and it showed as he was able to play a cool, calm and collected game. Going 5/7 from downtown and handing out 6 assists in 31 minutes that felt like ten is what you want from Wilbekin. Play the game and take what it gives you and make your shots, but don’t take over the game and have the weight of the world on your shoulders.

Granted that is much easier said that done when you have a secondary scorer and on this night Nunnally played that part but boy, if they can put together this type of performance every game, Maccabi wouldn’t be fighting for a playoff spot, but for first place.

Another wild card will be how Khyri Thomas takes to his role after making his Euroleague debut. While the guard didn’t score and in fact, didn’t shoot he looked terrific on the defensive end with a block using his long reach and that is quite the reach that he has plus his know-how airtight D in a shade over 11 minutes. If he can play this type of defense and his shot falls once the handcuffs are taken off then Maccabi may have found a bigger upgrade over Kameron Taylor than they even thought they had.

Of course, it’s still way too early to know from just one game, but the initial returns say that Thomas could be even better than advertised.

It’s always a lot more fun and much easier to analyze a win and another one at Bayern Munich, with or without Ioannis Sfairopoulos will really light up the Yellow & Blue fans as Maccabi would be back at .500 with an 11-11 record with a dozen games to go and all of the cards on the table.

If Maccabi can do that all bets are off and it’s open season for a playoff spot, something that just a short month ago was just a dream.

Now it is in the grease of reality and what a reality that would be over the final two months off Euroleague play.