Maccabi Tel Aviv came up short at Barcelona 93-83 as the hosts came out strong in the first quarter to take a double-digit lead and never look back to chalk up the win in a game that was played behind closed doors due to threats by anti-Israel protestors. The loss, their second in a a row in Euroleague play moves the yellow-and-blue’s record to 8-12 good for 14th place overall but three games off of a Play-In spot at tenth place. Next up for Maccabi is a game at Real Madrid on Thursday that will also be played without fans.

Tamir Blatt and Jaylen Hoard paced Maccabi Tel Aviv early on but Miles Norris, Willy Hernangomez and Toko Shengelia helped Barcelona to a 56-44 lead at halftime. Kevin Punter and Shengelia continued to score while Iffe Lundberg, Marcio Santos and Blatt tried to keep the yellow-and-blue close cutting the gap down to just 77-72 midway through the final frame, but Shengelia and Nicolas Laprovittola found points from the inside, outside and the free throw line to seal the victory.

Blatt scored 17 points, Hoard added 15 points and Lundberg put in 14 points in the loss while Shengelia scored a game high 22 points, Laprovittola scored 14 points and Punter chipped in with 12 points in the win.

Maccabi head coach Oded Katash talked about why his team fell at Barcelona, “We started the game terribly. It was not the first time it has happened to us. It’s like we don’t want to learn our lessons. We have to come out really aggressive and in order to win here against a very talented and well-coached team, you have to be focused. You have to start the game way more aggressive and focus on both sides of the court. Sometimes you lose the game in the first 7 minutes and that’s what happened here.”

Barcelona Head Coach Xavi Pascual spoke about the importance of Toko Shengelia’s contribution, “He’s one of the most important players we have. He’s a top-level player and we are very happy that he is back. We were missing him a lot. With him, we have another dimension to the team.”

Marcio Santos talked about the loss, “We need to start the games better, they had a big run and we couldn’t stop them in the first 6-7 minutes and then we found our rhythm but the score was out of hand already. We have to start off better.”