Last week’s double-week started very well for Maccabi Tel Aviv with a 93-83 victory over AS Monaco, however it ended in one of their worst games for the season with a 74-109 loss to Fenerbahçe, leaving the Oded Katash’s team in equal fourth place in the standings after 19 rounds on 11 wins and 8 losses together with Panathinaikos, Olympiacos and Fenerbahçe. Things won’t get any easier for Maccabi this week, hosting the second-placed 14-5 Virtus Bologna at Belgrade’s Aleksandar Nikolic Hall on Wednesday (22:00 IST / 15:00 EST), followed by a trip across town to face the 10-9 Partizan Belgrade at Stark Arena on Friday (21:30 IST / 14:30 EST).

“Another double week, two games which you can say are challenging, against two very good teams,” Maccabi coach Oded Katash said prior to Wednesday’s game. “Of course the second game against Partizan away, it’s a different atmosphere and we’re more prepared for that. But tomorrow, the most important thing is how we respond to the last game, which wasn’t good for us – not the result, not the way we played we didn’t bring the right energy. This is something that’s happened to us already once or twice this season. Until now we’ve responded well and we want to do that as well tomorrow.”

“Fener outplayed us at every aspect of the game, we didn’t play well at all and they got anything they wanted on the offensive end,” Bonzie Colson, who was named EuroLeague Round 18 MVP for his 27 points and 5 rebounds in the win over AS Monaco, said after the loss to Fenerbahçe. “We played terrible and didn’t play our game. Games like this happen but the game is over and it’s time to focus on Bologna.”

Bologna won the first contest between the teams in Italy a month ago in a 100-90 victory, with Tornike Shengelia leading all scorers with a season high 27 points, 8 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 steal, while Marco Belinelli also contributed with 22 points (including 4/8 from three), 2 rebounds and 2 assists. With both players averaging double-digit points for the season (15.9 and 14.3 respectively) and Shengelia having an MVP season in which he’s currently ranking third in the EuroLeague in average index rating per game with 20.4, it is going to be one of the more difficult games for Maccabi this season and comes at an inconvenient time after such a disappointing loss.

“Bologna is a very talented team,” Colson said of the Italians. “They have a lot of key players that play well together. Belinelli who has been playing an unbelievable season shooting the ball and Shengelia. So the key to the match is stopping them, controlling the rebounding battle and playing our game on the offensive end.”

“Tomorrow we have the game against Bologna, a strong team,” Roman Sorkin said. “We need to recover from last week’s loss. The keys to stopping them? They have very good players – Belinelli and Shengelia – very good scorers. They have a very good running game. We need to stop their running game. For us, we need to implement our gameplan, come into the game sharp, win and look ahead.”

While Colson and Sorkin both had modest games against Bologna the first time around this season – Colson with 10 points and 2 rebounds and Sorkin with 8 points and 2 rebounds – the team will be hoping for repeat performances against Bologna from stars Lorenzo Brown and Wade Baldwin IV, who were outliers in the loss earlier this season, together scoring 46 points and dishing out 8 assists. However, the form of both players has dropped in the last month, with Brown scoring 20 points twice in six games since that last encounter and Baldwin scoring 20 points once in his five games since.

Although Partizan now sits below Maccabi in the standings, they will have the opportunity to draw level with Maccabi before their game later this week, as the Serbians match up against Fenerbahçe (whom they beat 85-84 earlier this season) in Turkey on Tuesday night. Not only will it be daunting going into an arena with 20,000 plus fans, but Partizan will also have an extra day’s rest with Maccabi playing against Bologna on Wednesday night.

Maccabi fans will have fond memories of their first encounter with Partizan this season, with it being the sole EuroLeague game played in Tel Aviv for the season as the Yellow & Blue opened the season with a 96-81 victory, less than 36 hours before October 7. Brown (22 points, 1 rebound, 8 assists and 2 steals), Josh Nebo (14 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal) and Sorkin (14 points, 5 rebounds and 2 steals) starred in that game. With Maccabi statistically a better rebounding team than Partizan (36.5 vs 31.5 overall and 13.6 vs 8.8 on the offensive boards), they will be hoping for big nights from Nebo and Sorkin on Friday to give them the best opportunity of getting the win. Given how close the standings are and the difficulty of the first game of the week, it looks like this is going to be a must win for Katash’s team if they want to try to avoid the play-in and make the playoffs after Round 34.

Hapoel Tel Aviv, which sits in second place in Group A of the EuroCup and secured a place in the playoffs with five games of the regular season still to play, will be hosting third-place London Lions on Tuesday (19:30 IST / 12:30 EST) at Belgrade’s Aleksandar Nikolic Hall in Round 14 action. The Lions will themselves be looking to secure a playoff spot with a win, however it won’t be easy for the visitors, with Hapoel undefeated in three games against the Lions in EuroCup action over the past two seasons, including a 98-90 win in London in early November. The game will also be the first for the Reds new signing Will Cummings.

“Each game is important in its own right, but the decisive stages in the group are approaching and with them games, like the one tomorrow, which have great importance in the battles for position in the standings,” guard Bar Timor said after the final preparations before the game. “We will have to be aggressive on defense and continue to play on offense together with a lot of enthusiasm like we’ve done to date in most games, in order to maintain a perfect ledger in Belgrade and take a significant step towards the Quarter-Finals.

“In a season as complex as this one we are trying to create consistency and progress as a team and also integrate Dez Wells [who missed last weeks’ 89-80 win over Wolves Vilnius] while moving,” coach Danny Franco said. “Our challenge is getting stronger from week to week, but I’m sure that everyone will give their maximum and will do their best in order to win the game.”

Meanwhile, in BCL action, Hapoel Holon will be looking to sweep Filou Oostende in the second game of their best-of-three series on Tuesday (21:00 IST / 14:00 EST) in Belgium after the Purples won the first leg last week 80-70. A win will send them through to the Round of 16, where they will join Israel’s other BCL team, Hapoel Jerusalem. A loss will mean playing a decider next week in Riga.

We are coming to Belgium after a disappointing loss to Ramat Gan [on Saturday night in the Israeli league], the main goal is to learn from the game and to prepare for Oostende in the best possible way,” Holon coach Amit Schaerf said. “In order to win, we will need to defend their guards and prevent them creating points. We are coming to the game with one goal, to win and go through to the top 16.”