Maccabi Tel Aviv Head Coach Oded Katash was not happy after his team fell 91-79 at Parti.. sorry, against Partizan Belgrade in a game that showed a number of areas where the yellow-and-blue are seriously lacking as they ended up splitting their first Euroleague double week of the season. We’ll get to the at/against Partizan in a bit, but it was clear from Katash’s press availabilities following the game that while he may be content with most of his squad, he’s certainly not content with the situation that his team is trying to compete in.

From depth issues, to not having a true home court and from injuries to a pair of his rotation players to those on his roster that he has very little faith in, Maccabi has a lot of soul searching to do as they know sit at 2-2 after four rounds in the continent’s best competition.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg for the yellow-and-blue, but it’s clear that Katash feels that he doesn’t have the tools to meet explications even with the extra hurdles his team will have to face all season long that the their 17 teams do not have to contend with.

Partizan is a brand new team with 14 players being brought in for this season. Wile it will take the greatest coach in league history Zeljko Obradovic time to see his team mold into a unit that can strive for the top of the standings, he’s got a full complement of players that he can go to especially in a double week with two games in three days sandwiched between domestic league clashes.

Oded Katash does not.

Maccabi looked good early and got a jump on Partizan, opening up a 9 point lead midway through the opening frame, but Obradovic made a few adjustments during the TV timeout along with a few substitutions and voila, Partizan were ahead by a point after ten minutes. That momentum carried into the second quarter but Katash’s crew started close thanks to an all-world effort from Levi Randolph who dropped 17 points in the first half and moved into the lead 46-42 by halftime.

However, that was that as the visitors, sporting a deep bench along with plenty of support in the stands in what was a Maccabi “home game” taking place at Pionir Arena in Belgrade got the upper hand and by the final frame had very, very little left in the tank as Partzian did as they pleased to take the win.

“If you told me we would be 1-1 after the double week I would have grabbed it,” Katash said. “But we still feel as if we missed an opportunity. We didn’t play well and they were able to get us out of our pace with switches and they punished us. We are a new team and it was tough for us to handle that, It’s never fun to lose but we have to take these games and learn from them to improve.”

Certainly it was a missed opportunity as they were in prime position at halftime to sweep a double week and move their record to really an implausible 3-1, but reality set it over the final twenty minutes of play and the real Maccabi, the one that has some talent, just didn’t have the firepower and depth to compete and that really frazzled the beach boss.

“It’s not fun to lose and we just fell off. We tried to manage the minutes in the first half but we saw [the effect] in the second half. We had some shots and we won the battle of the boards but it was a home game that felt like a road game, we are missing players but we will continue on.”

Maccabi did get their shots but one ball after the next kept clanging off of the front rim, an indication that their legs were shot and exhausted. Going 6/24 for 25% from beyond the arc is never going to win you a game especially when your opponent went 11/23 going 47.8% from deep and that according to Katash in essence lost the yellow-and-blue the game.

“Everyone had a different story,” Katash started. “John [Dibartolomeo] got to his shots ( 0/6 from 3, 0 points in close to 23 minutes), and misses happens. It’s part of being exhausted. We paid a double price in this game, we tried to work the minutes out but players paid the price of that. I think we could have been ahead by 8 points after the first half, but we have short roster, the conditions are tough and it was a home game that felt like a road game. Somehow we were still there. It was very hard with the conditions we are playing in right now.”

“The double week is never easy” the bench boss continued. “It was a bit too much for us with the short roster that we have and we saw that in the second half with the 3-point percentage and turnovers and we paid for that, it never feels good to lose a game. The 3-point percentage decided the game. We are in a process and it never feels good to lose a game. We have to keep our heads up and in the future we play more team basketball. The defense was tough for us including for Saben Lee (5 points) who arrived a few days ago. However, In a way the result of the double week is good and solid for us.”

Throughout last season when Maccabi had to basically move their operations from Tel Aviv to Belgrade in just mere days due to the October 7th attacks by Hamas, Katash never really complained about the conditions. He had a solid roster that had depth and one that had been running together already for a season. This year it’s a bit of a different story with a serious amount of roster turnover, some players refusing to return to Israel, injures to a pair of regular rotation players and a definite lack of faith in some have left Katash and Maccabi frustrated.

“We have been looking for a player even before we lost Jordan Loyd and Rokas Jokubaitis went down with an injury [due to Daryl Macon being cut]. But we won a big game against EFES however, there is no magic to recuperating and regaining our strength and we still we found the way to score in the first half. I have to look at the rotation that I used and see if we used enough players in the first half.”

Let’s take a look and see how Katash used his 12 man roster.

Seven players with over 21 minutes averaging more than 26.5 minutes across them, one player with 9 minutes and then you have a collection of three players with no more than 2:33. In the first game of the double week against EFES, Maccabi went with the same seven players again who averaged about 26.5 minutes, one player played 10 minutes who also was the same player and one played a but over 5 minutes. So the distribution was pretty much the same over the two games.

Partizan on the other hand had seven players over 19:35 averaging 24.5 minutes, two players in the 10-13 minute range and one with a bit under 3 minutes. In the first game of the week against Bayern Munich, Obradovic had 9 players with over 13 minutes and another two with 7 minutes each while a number of players played more in game one than game two and vice versa.

The bottom line is, Partizan had fresher legs in the second game of the double week and Obradovic had more trust in his roster than Katash.

It’s clear that Katash will not rely on Alpha Kaba who is on a short term contract, Omer Mayer who is a young guard that will primarily play in the Israeli league as well as Rafi Menco and Will Rayman while Jake Cohen will not be playing more than roughly ten minutes a game. That leaves a very, very short bench that Katash can use right now and that is clearly not to the tacticians’s liking.

Of course, there is a reality as well with Iranian attacks, constant barrages from Hezbollah ad over 100 hostages being held in Gaza. The fact that they were able to sig Saben Lee who for right now will not head to Israel as the war continues, is a miracle onto itself.

Katash wants to compete and he wants the tools to do so no matter what the conditions the club has to compete in. Just like last season when Maccabi went to a 5th game against Panathinaikos, really against all odds, Katash wants the tools to be able to do the same.

Perhaps Randolph said it best after the game due to what the team is facing, “Just have to keep getting better, It’s a long season. Down the stretch we weren’t able to get some big stops but we have to just keep working. Coach is always telling us it’s a long season and that it’s a process. We still have a lot to learn and that is the bright spot. We were able to get one win in this double week and we weren’t able to get this one, but we have to just keep working.”

If Katash is telling his players that it’s a long season and they have a lot to learn, he’s also got to believe that himself. While the team may be able to make some moves here and there and he will be able to mold the squad with the material he has, he’s got to believe it wholeheartedly. If he doesn’t, well, it’s going to be a very, very long season.