Maccabi Tel Aviv fell to Panathinaikos 99-92 as the Greens mounted a late game comeback that included an 18-0 run to knock off the yellow-and-blue and halt their 4 game Euroleague winning streak. Oded Katash’s team controlled the pace of play from the outset as Levi Randolph, Roman Sorkin and Jake Cohen helped push the Maccabi lead to 15 points, 82-67 with 8:44 left in the final frame. However, Juancho Hernangomez, Kendrick Nunn, Lorenzo Brown and Konstantinos Mitoglou shot lights out hitting seven triples in the fourth quarter to hand the reigning champions the victory. Next up for Maccabi Tel Aviv will be a Friday night clash against Anadolu EFES in a game that will take place in Latvia due to the ongoing security situation between Israel and Turkey.

Randolph scored 21 points, Cohen added 15 points and Sorkin put in 12 points in the loss. Nunn scored 26 points, Hernangomez chipped in with 18 points and Brown scored 14 points in the win.

“Frustrating,” Katash began. “It can’t be that only one team was aggressive. We were playing with different lineups, we couldn’t stop their run at the end of the game and we also missed very good shots. There’s nothing we can do, that’s the situation, we played against a good team, but if a few whistles had gone our way, we could have won the game.”

“Maybe we aren’t deep enough, or even as good as we were in the last two years, but we are playing better basketball at this stage of the season, quite similar to last season. It’s all a matter of process when teams that are built from scratch at the beginning of the season. I am proud of the players I coach and we are obviously missing our injured players. I think if you add Jaylen Hoard and Jasiel Rivero and another big man it would have been a help throughout the year. We had two straight years that we were in the playoffs and I must say that I am no less proud of this season than the last two.”

“We played terrible basketball for 35 minutes and only when we were down by 15 did we start pressing and playing aggressive basketball,” Panathinaikos Head Coach Ergin Ataman said. “Why? Because we realized we were on our way to losing. It’s truly a miracle that we won, because I already told you that for 35 minutes we played terrible basketball, we didn’t deserve to win. The players invested a lot of energy at the end and things worked out for us, to my delight, because this is a very important victory for us.”

“We did a good job,” concluded Cohen. “We fought, but there is little room for error against a team of PAO’s level, you have to play basketball at an almost perfect level. I appreciate the opportunity I was given and hope to continue like this, you have to do everything possible. We are in a critical part of the season and I hope that this will be a good lesson for us.”

“We never give up,” Juancho Hernangomez said. “That’s the champion’s heart. The great teams do that – they keep fighting until the end. Great fourth quarter, great effort by everybody.”