Back in 2022-23 season, Maccabi Tel Aviv was 0-5 on the road as they hit the city of Milan for their 13th Euroleague game of the campaign. The Sports Rabbi had accompanied the 7-5 yellow-and-blue to Italy for the contest as Oded Katash’s team which collected plenty of home wins were humming along with the likes of Lorenzo Brown, Wade Baldwin and Bonnie Colson. Baldwin was not dressed for the game and was out injured for a month and change and the thoughts of chalking up another L away from the friendly confines of Yad Eliyahu was definitely a reality.

Ettore Messina’s squad grabbed a 40-32 lead at halftime and the outlook was bleak once again on a cold night in the south of the city. But all of a sudden Brown along with Jarell Martin, Colson and John Dibartolomeo fired up the engines to knot the game up at 59-59 after thirty minutes of action. From there, Roman Sorkin took over with a quartet of fourth quarter baskets while Brown out the finishing touches on the 77-71 victory that helped Maccabi break the streak.

While Katash’s team would still only finish the season with a 5-12 record on the road, they did have a 15-2 record at home for an impressive 20-14 overall finish good for 5th place, this season’s version is no where close to being that of 2022-23 but they certainly would like to take a page out the that team’s books.

Right now as we head to the 1/3 quarter mark of the 2024/25 season, Maccabi is 3-7 with a 3-2 record at home which is not the home they would like to be in which is currently Pionir Arena in Belgrade while on the road the yellow-and-blue are 0-5 as they head into, you guessed it, Milan where they will face Messina’s squad on Thursday at 9:30pm Israel time.

Katash’s squad will be without Tamir Blatt who will be out for roughly a month with a knee injury that he suffered in the Winner Cup Final this past Sunday night as well as Jasiel Rivero who is also out with a small hamstring tear but should be back within the next 10 days or so. Messina’s team is sitting in 13th place, just one above Maccabi with a 4-6 record as they have also struggled finding consistency this season.

Milano does have some dangerous players in Nikola Mirotic and Zach Leday, but there’s not much more there right now with Josh Nebo, the former Maccabi big man who is out injured.

Should Katash’s squad want to stay somewhat in the picture of the Play In, they need to find a way to win this game or else at 3-8, the season for all intents and purposes will be over. As crazy as it sounds and only into Gameday 11, it’s really do or die for Maccabi Tel Aviv and this year’s version will need to take a page out of the one from back in 2022/23.

The last thing that Maccabi will want to head into a short international break before their next game in Berlin a week from Thursday is with yet another loss.

This team has had its challenges without a doubt with players in and out of the lineup with injuries as well as new players arriving which in itself presents its own set of challenges to Katash.

“Everyone is at a different stage of integration,” the bench boss said. “Saban Lee with the problem (of him not coming to Israel due to the war) from the beginning of the season, David De Julius who recently joined the squad and is feeling a little sore. Now we have another new player in Marial Shayok so we’ll have to respond accordingly. There is a chance that Shayok will play, I don’t know how much, he is a positive guy, he grasps things relatively quickly. I’m very optimistic.”

DeJulius who came on board last month from Aris in Greece has looked as good as advertised since joining the yellow-and-blue and has provided some floor generalship and scoring as well from the point guard position. Also, coming to Israel also puts him in a better spot than Lee as he has been able to play a number of domestic league games as well as train with the cub on a regular basis.

“We’re confident in ourselves,” DeJulius remarked. “We had a few close games that we could have won. At this level, all the teams are good, anyone can beat anyone. We need to play together, play hard and stick to the game plan. I love it here and we have to keep striding in the right direction. We’ve done some good things and maybe the results aren’t there yet the way we would like them to be but we have to continue to keep to the script.”

Maccabi has kept to the script and played a number of very, very close games, ones that they were in the lead at halftime and in some cases even holding double-digit leads but one the third quarter begins, it’s all downhill from there. The gap narrows rapidly, then the yellow-and-blue fall behind and it’s curtains from there. In fact, that script unfolded in technicolor last week in a pair of Greek losers to Panathinaikos and Olympiacos.

“We need to be mentally locked in on the goal,” Dejulius continued. “We look good in the first halves and it’s not like out our talent disappears at halftime. It’s a mental thing, we have to stay together, the game is about runs so when we make our run we have to stay level headed and when the other team takes a run stay level headed and if we have that mindset for 40 minutes, the results will come.”

Katash understands the urgency to win and understands the high expectations at Maccabi Tel Aviv but as he says, “There are no easy games, certainly against a team like Milan that has weapons. Everyone goes through injuries, players come back and get injured again. This is a good team, very dangerous with two bigs who can score from outside and a lot of lineups where there are sometimes five players who score from outside. We are not favorites, not in the situation we are in, but we will try to win like we tried the last two games in the Euroleague.”

The Maccabi bench boss is very careful when it comes to be looking at his team as the favorites in any game, “As for Bologna, there was a feeling that we were supposed to win and be the favorites. If it was difficult to get our first road win back in 2022/23 with Wade (Baldwin), Lorenzo (Brown) and Bonzie (Colson) which was a year that we built the team and there was no war, then it certainly does now, during a war and with everything we are going through. You have to remember that this is a team that was built almost from scratch with players who are constantly coming back from injuries. It is difficult to plan even as a coach who we can use and for how much time.”

The one thing that DeJulius won’t accept is looking to take the easy way out and play the blame game, “Anyone can find any excuse about anything in their life. But at this level we are doing what we can to win basketball games but that’s the way things are right now especially in Israel we have to tough through it and find a way to win basketball games.”