Maccabi Tel Aviv fell to ALBA Berlin 93-87 as the yellow-and-blue succumbed to possibly their most concerning loss of the season to the last place club. Oded Katash’s squad controlled the game from the outset with baskets from Rokas Jokubatis, Roman Sorkin, Tamir Blatt and Jasiel Rivero but Israel Gonzalez’s team kept it close with strong play from Yanni Wetzell, Martin Hermannsson and Matt Delow. However, in the second half, Matteo Spagnolo and Louis Olinde helped the visitors take the lead as Marial Shayok tried to close the gap Wetzell was just too strong for Maccabi as ALBA took the win.

Blatt scored 16 points, Sorkin added 14 points and Rivero put in 12 points in the loss. Wetzell scored 22 points, Delow put in 14 points as Spagnolo, Hermannsson and Olinde all scored 11 points in the win.

“Bad result for us and we can’t hide from that,” Maccabi Tel Aviv Head Coach Oded Katash began. “We have to give credit to ALBA. Watching their last few games we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It was a physical and a high tempo game and we were not always there with our intensity. We missed Jaylen Hoard which was a key factor on defense and offense, but we expected to be more concentrated defensively.”

“We expected to play better and it wasn’t our best game and we turned over the ball a lot. Bad result and we have a very tough schedule ahead of us with an important double week and the Final Four of the Israel State Cup. We have to learn from this, to be ready every minute and every possession and get better.”

“I want to congratulate the players for the effort,” ALBA Head Coach Israel Gonzalez said. “We made a step forward in our mentality as we had some problems this week but we put them aside and had a goal. We improved our transition and our one-on-one and defensive rebounds in the game which were the keys and three things that we wanted to improve.”

Jasiel Rivero spoke about the loss, “At the beginning of the game, we were in control, but later on we didn’t manage to do things properly, we didn’t play defense the way we planned. In the second half, we had a mental breakdown and we didn’t play defense as we should have. In the fourth quarter, we had a chance to get back into the game. We need to fight more and not be calm when we lose a few points. We have to continue with the same mentality, don’t relax and push ahead to get the victory as we begin preparations for the next game.

Rokas Jokubaitis, Jasiel Rivero and Roman Sorkin scored for Maccabi Tel Aviv to begin the game, while Yanni Wetzell and Tim Schneider responded for ALBA Berlin as the yellow-and-blue led 22-19 after the opening quarter. Tamir Blatt was busy from the outside and inside for Oded Katash’s squad, Martin Hermannsson and Elias Rapieque came back with points for Israel Gonzalez’s team but Maccabi headed into halftime with a 48-46 advantage.

Malte Delow and Wetzell found points for ALBA, Blatt and Rafi Menco responded but baskets from Matteo Spagnolo and Louis Olinde gave the visitors a 70-63 lead after thirty minutes of action. Wetzell, Delow and Hermannsson bumped the lead up to double digits, Marial Shayok went for a trio of triples, but a Wetzell dunk wrapped up the win for ALBA.