Maccabi Tel Aviv fell to Barcelona 92-90 in a thriller of a game in Belgrade. The yellow-and-blue stayed close throughout the game but Wade Baldwin was ejected after a pair of technical fouls coupled with a tremendous effort from Nicolas Laprovittola to go along with only 16/26 from the free throw line and 19 turnovers did Head Coach Oded Katash’s in.

Baldwin scored 19 points, Josh Nebo added 13 points and Lorenzo Brown chipped in with 12 points in the loss. Laprovittola paced Barca with 23 points while Alex Abrines chipped in with 16 points in the win.

“Tough loss for us,” Katash began. “I felt that we played the right way offensively, against their defense we started the game well but the way we played in the first half hurt us. They had a run early in the second half but we are missing some guards and not having Wade [near the end of the game] really hurt us. Some decisions and calls by the referees were against us. Congrats to Barca who had some great baskets down the stretch, we have a double week next week and we will need to recover well.”

Bonzie Colson also reflected on the game, “These types of games we got to be perfect on both sides of the floor. We did improve on the start and that was an emphasis and an improvement of ours. But it came down to rebounding, defense hurt us. We’ll go back to watch film and try to get better from this and it hurts but this is a game that we have to learn from.”

Josh Nebo got busy inside for Maccabi Tel Aviv while Lorenzo Brown, Wade Baldwin and Jake Cohen all found the bottom of the basket as Nicola Laprovittola, Willy Hernangomez and James Nnaji countered for Barcelona but it was the hosts who grabbed the early 31-26 lead after ten minutes of action.

Jabari Parker and Joel Parra cut into the yellow-and-blue lead while Baldwin responded to keep the hosts in front, Alex Abrines and Hernangomez gave Roger Grimau’s team the lead but Nebo and Cohen came back with points while Anotnius Cleveland and Abrines traded tripes to head into halftime all knotted up at 51-51.

Nnaji, Parker and Nikola Kalinic helepd Barcelona to a 10-0 run to begin the third quarter, Brown, Baldwin and Jasiel Rivero tried to get Maccabi back into the game but the visitors snatched a 61-57 lead midway through the period. Tomas Satoransky started to score, but Baldwin, Rivero and a 3-pointer from Cleveland showed character as Roman Sorkin pulled Oded Katash’s squad to within a pair of points, 70-68 at the end of thirty minutes.

Bonzie Colson started to find the basket, Laprovittola and Abrines matched the Maccabi forward but another bucket by Colson off a Sorkin steal tied the game up at 79-79 with 6:15 remaining in the fourth quarter. Baldwin was ejected after picking up a second technical but the yellow-and-blue hung tough with points from Rivero, however, Laprovittola with a pair of baskets coupled with Brown’s last gasp effort from deep handed Barcelona the win.