Maccabi Tel Aviv fell to Baskonia 89-82 as they came up short yet again and were swept in Euroleague Double Week play to drop their record to 6-20 on the season. The yellow-and-blue came out strong in the first quarter as Levi Randolph, Mariall Shayok and Trevion Williams helped Oded Katash’s team to a 23-22 lead after the opening period.

But Chima Moneke, Markus Howard and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot started to score at will to jump in front in the second quarter and never looked back to help the hosts take the win. Roman Sorkin scored 16 points, Randolph added 13 points and Williams scored 12 points in the loss. Luwawu-Cabarrot scored 20 points, Moneke put in 18 points and Howard chipped in with 17 points in the win.

Maccabi will now ready for the Israel State Cup semifinal Derby against Hapoel on Monday night in Jerusalem where it is still unknown if Jaylen Hoard will be available or not to play due to hamstring issue, while Rokas Jokubaitis didn’t play at Baskonia due to a ankle issue.

“We had good minutes, but they were able to gets out of our game,” Katash said. “We were there and battled, I have a lot of good things to take from the game despite the loss. If I also take Rokas Jukovaitis’ injury into account it just made splitting up the minutes more difficult. I think Baskonia had a crazy shooting day. There were 10 minutes where they made crazy shots at the end of the clock and we missed free throws. We’re looking forward to Monday’s derby, we have a long trip home and very little time to prepare for the game against Hapoel Tel Aviv.”

Roman Sorkin added, “There’s a derby on Monday, what happened here, happened. Right now this is our most important game of the season and we will come in to do everything in order to win. It will be a tough game, but we will do everything to bring the victor