Maccabi Tel Aviv beat cellar dwellers ALBA Berlin 83-70 in Germany on Thursday night on the back of a 22-7 final frame. Jarrell Martin (21 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal), Jalen Adams (17 points, 1 rebound and 3 assists) and Lorenzo Brown (15 points, 7 assists and 2 steals) led the scoring for the visitors, while Maodo Lo (16 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist and 1 steal) and Johannes Thiemann (12 points and 5 rebounds) were the only players in double figures for the hosts.
Here are a few of my reflections from the round 13 clash.
The Good: Jarrell Martin
We often talk about players making the most of their opportunities – following the long-term injury to Alex Poythress, Martin is starting to make the most of his opportunities. Against Alba Berlin he had his best game in his rookie Euroleague season, with a game-high performance index rating of 27 in a season high of just over 31 minutes. He was strong under the basket – of his 7 rebounds, 5 of them were offensive boards, which provided his team with repeated opportunities to score – and he stretched the floor as well, scoring 4/7 from downtown.
“Most definitely, coaches are hard on us about crashing the boards and getting those offensive boards and trying to get those cheap points,” Martin said after the game. “You know, that’s something we try to do to pick our momentum up and get going.”
Maccabi coach Oded Katash was also happy with Martin’s effort last night: “He was good and he has improved. He showed confidence and his shots fell – I‘m really happy for him.”
Martin was also aggressive with the ball, drawing a total of 5 fouls. Significantly, he was unafraid of driving to the basket and making contact with the defender, which resulted in him also going to the line 4 times.
Martin is unlikely to be a long-term option to fully replace Poythress. “We are looking for what we need and we are missing a central player like Alex, but we will wait for the right player,” Katash said about whether Maccabi will look to sign another player to replace Poythress.
While Katash and his staff are looking for that additional player, Martin is helping to make sure that they do not need to rush into anything, as he proving to be able to provide meaningful minutes and contributions proving to be a very capable
The Bad: Foul troubles
This season, Maccabi has found itself in foul trouble, which has severely impaired their ability to defend effectively. It looked like this could have affected Maccabi similarly in this game as well – at half time, Maccabi had committed 11 fouls and sent ALBA to the line 13 times (for 11 points). Conversely, ALBA committed only 7 fouls for which Maccabi went to the line only 7 times (for 6 points).
Going into the halftime break, Brown acknowledge that this was an issue: “It’s a very high intensity game, they’re doing a great job keeping us out of the paint. We need to find a way to get there and make some plays.”
Things did not get better on this front after the long break – less than 4 minutes into the third frame, Maccabi was already sitting at 4 fouls and down 51-55. While this helped ALBA extend the deficit to 51-60 halfway through the quarter, Maccabi was fortunate that ALBA completely ran out of steam for the last 15 minutes, during which Maccabi outscored the Germans 32-10 and evened the numbers on the foul front (21 committed to 16 drawn and 14 trips to the line (for 12 points) against ALBA’s 19 (for 13 points).
“I think first half, I don’t think we matched the intensity,” Adams said after the game. “We went into the locker-room and coach kind of got on us and kind of just settled us down. I think we just stuck to our principles and matched our intensity which was huge for us.”
The Ugly: End of the first half
While Maccabi had a very strong second half, the first half was a different story. The box score will show that Maccabi went into the main break down 40-47, but what it doesn’t show is that Maccabi was up 38-37 with two and a half minutes to go in the half – which of course means that over those last 150 seconds, ALBA outscored Maccabi 10-2. Halftime probably couldn’t have come at a better time for Maccabi, but the end of the first half was painful for the yellow and blue fans.
“In the first half we were not concentrating, we were not aggressive enough – especially defensively, they got 47 points,” Katash said after the game. “We talked at halftime and I really liked the way the players reacted and adjusted and adapted generally.”
Up Next: Away in Northern Israel and home to Efes
Maccabi returns to Israel and will play against Hapoel Galil Elyon at Kfar Blum on Sunday night (21:00 Israel / 14:00 EST). While Galil Elyon sit 7th on the table with 4 wins and 6 losses, they are coming into the game on the back of a 98-94 away win against Kiryat Ata two weeks ago and an 86-66 home win against Hapoel Holon last week (including a big 25-11 4th quarter). Maccabi will be hoping to make it two consecutive away wins up north after last week’s 77-60 win over Hapoel Gilboa Galil at Gan Ner.
Maccabi will then return to Yad Eliyahu in Euroleague action for the first time in three weeks when they come up against the two-time reigning champions, Anadolu Efes, at 21:05 Israel / 14:05 EST on Thursday night. Maccabi is currently sitting in 7th spot in the EuroLeague standings with 8 wins and 7 losses after last night’s win, however Efes is only one win behind with a game in hand, as they come up against Panathanaikos in Istanbul on Friday night.
“That’s big, that’s a big momentum change for us,” Martin said of taking 2 wins from 3 away games over the last two weeks. “For us to go on the road and pick up some wins. It’s been hard for us at first, now we’re able to chip in and get some victories. So hopefully we can carry the momentum over.”
Given that Maccabi has a tough away game against Real Madrid the following week, next week is important for Maccabi if they’re going to stay in playoff contention going into the back half of the season. The players are under no illusion of the challenge over the upcoming Christmas and New Year period.
“It’s good to have a win going back home, but it [Christmas] is definitely not going to be relaxed. We know December and January are important times for us where we have to win games.”
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