There used to be a hockey line for the Buffalo Sabres in the 1970’s called the “French Connection” that consisted of Gilbert Perreault, Rene Robert and Rick Martin that accumulated 1,681 points in 1,536 man games between 1972-1979. That line of French Canadians from the province of Quebec caused havoc by creating scoring chance after scoring chance for one of the most dynamic teams of its generation by punishing their opponents game in and game out.

Today’s basketball version of Real Madrid has their own “French Connection” and Maccabi Tel Aviv found out how just lethal the Los Blancos Francophones really are up close and personal as they fel in Spain 72-70 on a last gasp basket by Guerschon Yabusele. Along with Yabusele, Thomas Heurtel did everything in his power to hurt the Yellow & Blue time and time again while Vincent Poirier and Fabien Causeur also played their part in the heartbreaking defeat for Ioannis Sfairopoulos.

Sfairopoulos looked stunned at the end of the game and in the press conference where he barely uttered a word about the contest. One in which he said something about that we deserved to win the game.

“I congratulated our players in the locker room because of the game that we had tonight. We controlled the game and I think that we deserved to win. Small details judged the game in the end.”

Deserved to win the game?

Not quite.

Maccabi entered the final frame with a 9-point, 59-50 lead in a game that yes, the Yellow & Blue did control, but in the end both the players and coach frozen when the clash mattered most, in crunch time.

Poirier and Causer helped cut the lead down while Heurtel scored in bundles as time wound down to the tune of 8 points in the last few minutes to pull ahead 70-67. While Derrick Williams drilled home a 3-pointer to get Maccabi even, Yabusele came up with the biggest bucket of the day.

The former Boston Celtics man took the ball from the elbow and went one on one with Ante Zizic as he beat the Croatian big man to score what was the winning bucket.

All in all, Real’s French Connection scored 20 of 22 fourth quarter points to take the win.

A team that gets outscored quite handily over the final ten minutes doesn’t deserve to win the game.

Maccabi couldn’t figure out how to score, couldn’t figure out how to defend and most importantly couldn’t figure out to make sure the personnel on the floor for Real’s last possession were the correct ones.

That’s no knock on Ante Zizic who has been superb this season but Sfairopoulos should have gone with a smaller lineup and make sure he had the right player on Yabusele.

Let’s take a look at the ten players on the court by who was covering who when Yabusele was able to take Zizic for a ride on the winning basket:

Real Madrid – Maccabi Tel Aviv
Yabusele – Zizic
Causeur- Derrick Williams
Heurtel – Angelo Caloiaro
Rudy Fernandez – Rudy Fernandez
Sergio Llull – Keenan Evans

Real sent with a small lineup with no center and Maccabi didn’t counter appropriately as Sfairopoulos admitted, “Small details judged the game in the end.”

Captain John Dibartolomeo echoed his coach’s thoughts after the game, “It was 2-points and it came down to the small details and unfortunately we came up short.”

Pablo Laso on the other hand has a clear idea as to what he wanted to do with that final play and it seems that Maccabi fell for their trap, hook, line and sinker.

“The conversation [in the final timeout] was pretty clear. We thought that probably we were going to go with a big squat, trying to switch in every ball screen, so somehow I tried to give the ball to somebody who could attack the basket quick without a pick-and-roll. That way, that was going to be a straight one-on-one. That’s what we did and Guerschon [Yabusele] did it great. The attack was right and he got the winning basket.”

Yabusele himself spoke about the final play for his viewpoint, “That is what the coaches drew [on the go-ahead shot], so I had to get ready, get the ball and just tried to score the ball and win the game.”

And win the game he did.

Derrick Williams looked at what happened at the end of the game but preferred to look at the glass half full, “We just didn’t get stops when we needed to 9 point lead going into the 4th, it’s not a good way to end the game. But at the same time we fought hard and sometimes that’s just not enough.”

Maccabi had to just had to find a way not to lose the game which ended up being their 4th Euroleague road loss in a row with two going right down to the wire , “We lost four road games in a row, two of them by 1-2 points, that’s tough,” Williams said. “At the same time these are good teams. We’re on a bad streak but we have to stay positive that is the main thing.”

However, DiBartolomeo knows full well that sports are a result oriented business that weighs wins and losses, “We were leading for the majority of the second half up until the last couple of minutes. We were right there and there are good things to take from the game but at the end of the day, we need wins.”

Yes, Maccabi needs wins and they need wins fast as their record is now 7-6 with a very, very tough month ahead.