Maccabi Tel Aviv takes on Barcelona at their Belgrade home away from home on Thursday (21:05) as the yellow-and-blue are hoping to put their 93-81 loss to Paris behind them that moved their Euroleague record to 4-9 which places them 16th amongst the 18 teams in the competition. Should Oded Katash’s team have any designs on punching a ticket to the Play In portion of the postseason they will have to find a way to defeat a Barcelona team that has struggled of late and has lost 4 games in a row.

The bottom line is, this will not be an easy task to say the least.

With a record 4-9 and 21 games left in the bank, it’s not impossible that Maccabi can find a way to turn their season around but it’s just going to get more and more difficult as every game passes. Katash’s crew is now 3 games behind in the win column from 10th place but there are also 5 teams ahead of them with a better record which doesn’t help matters.

Most teams say they are taking it one game at a time, but there’s no question that the club has to be looking a bit over the mountain at what is waiting for them as well. A Derby, a visit to Bayern Munich and Red Star and games in Belgrade against Baskonia and Zalgiris coming up in the month of December.

It’s not an impossible schedule and if Maccabi wants to make sure they play meaningful games in the second round of the season they are going to have to begin collecting wins. However, the question is, are they good enough to be able to do so.

The atmosphere around the club at Ben Gurion airport prior to departing on their current homestand was upbeat and there was an air of confidence that permeated around the team that they could matchup against Paris in the first of two games this week. That they would be able to stop TJ Shorts and that they played similar basketball to the French club in the past which would help them stop Tiago Splitter’s team in their tracks and end their 8 game winning streak.

Unfortunately, Maccabi was never, ever in the game.

Shorts opened up with a triple just 18 seconds in and for all intents and purposes, that was that.

“We weren’t really able to stop them and they also made a lot of big baskets,” Katash commented.

Maccabi is just not good enough and doesn’t have enough depth to compete with the best of the best in the continent.

Sure, there are some nice players in Jaylen Hoard and Levi Randolph and yes Rokas Jokubaitis and Tamir Blatt have what to offer but the team is made up with a lot of very nice complimentary parts who are just that. Who can really take the bull by the horns on this team? Who can score a bucket when they so desperately need one?

Last season there was Wade Baldwin and Lorenzo Brown with Bonzie Colson and Josh Nebo as a real quartet of players that could be relied on and they had been together for quite some time. This year’s team does not have the characteristics that last year’s did and in fact, it was Paris who had the upper hand in that category with players who had been playing with one another for more than just this season.

“I think that as a coach you can feel the gap between a team that has continuity and knows what it’s doing and our current situation,” Katash explained. “We only now have a full roster and with a lack of training and that’s not going to change anytime soon, we’ll have to know how to build something, some kind of defensive and offensive coordination, to execute things better, I think that’s what ultimately decided the game.”

No one is comparing this year’s squad to the one that went to a decisive game five against eventual Euroleague champs Panathinaikos in the quarterfinals, that’s crystal clear especially in light of where the country is and the war that has been waged since October 2023 against Hamas and Hezbollah. But in order to really compete, Katash needs to have the horses to do so and the depth to do so and the quality to do so and he just doesn’t.

“We’re in the process of learning and building,” the bench boss said. “As crazy as it sounds at this stage of the season with all the changes we’ve made and with all the players who were injured and came back, we’re still in the process. We’ll stay positive and keep fighting.”

Sure there have been injuries and it’s only now heading into game number 14 that they have a full roster, but truth be told, most teams had injuries to some of their key players. The difference is that these other teams have plenty of players on their roster and have the depth that Maccabi doesn’t. So sure, every injury is going to be an issue for the club because they don’t have the players to fill in.

They weren’t able to or just didn’t bring in enough quality players that could keep Maccabi afloat before the season began and that is fact. Of course, Maccabi couldn’t know that Jordan Loyd was going to leave the team so soon into the season following the Iranian attack, but again they did not have the players in place that could step up. Management needs to take a good look at the reasons why.

Maccabi will need to dig down deep and try to use their desire and guile to win some games coming up this month or else it’s going to be a very, very cold winter. But can they?

“In a double week after a loss in the first game, mentally it’s not easy,” Katash said. “You have to recover, hold your head up and know that we played against a good team that went almost half a round of games without a loss. Although Barcelona are missing a few players, they have enough talented players, with height and are dominant, who know how to play and have a lot of experience and a lot of abilities. It’s a different style but they still play with a high pace.”

The yellow-and-blue have been able to stick together and some of their losses have been close. On the other hand two of their wins were thanks to Saben Lee who is no longer on the team and could have easily been defeats.

According to Hoard there are ways to defeat Barcelona and that starts with defense, “They are a talented team and individually as well so we have to focus in on our guy’s strengths. Play good team defense, I feel that has been hurting us a little bit, so if we can take care of I feel that our offense will be fine, we will be able to flow and get easy buckets on the other end.”

One of Maccabi’s newest recruits is Marial Shayok who has been a welcome addition to the club, but ultimately he just joined the team and there is going to be a learning curve, however, he knows that there is strength in numbers and the team needs to stay united if they have any type of chance to make waves.

“Stay together, coming off a tough loss we got to keep our energy right, listen to the coach’s game plan, keeping the chemistry high coming out, playing hard and see what happens,” the swingman said.

But for Katash, he sees that his team will need to go back to the basics and play their own style of game and not try to play that of their opponent’s, “We need to restore our confidence because I think the pace against Paris took us away from what we wanted to do. We have to come in with our system of play and what we do well. That is the challenge.”