Everyone loves a good old fashioned showdown. It could be player versus player, or player versus coach, but there are very few fans and competitors that don’t enjoy want to take up what for them may be the ultimate challenge. That’s exactly what we’re going to get when Maccabi Tel Aviv and their star guard Lorenzo Brown head to Bologna where one of the great head coach’s of our time in Sergio Scariolo will look to shut him down and frustrate his Spanish charge.

This will be the first time that the two will cross paths after having won the European Championship back in the summer with the Spain National Team and both will be up to the challenge.

However, regardless as to how this week will end for Maccabi Tel Aviv, they have already been able to win their first Euroleague road game of the season when they knocked off Olimpia Milano on Tuesday night in Italy 77-71. The yellow-and-blue had been down 57-47 with just a few minutes remaining in the third quarter but ripped off a 12-0 run to close out the frame and then went on to an 18-12 fourth quarter to take the win as I finally witnessed a Maccabi victory away from home for the first time in six tries.

Maccabi head coach Oded Katash’s victory over Etorre Messina and his Israeli assistant Dan Shamir’s squad was the Italian side’s 9th loss in a row in what was a raucous Forum in southern Milan. Fans packed into the arena that hosted the yellow-and-blue’s previous Euroleague championship in 2014, to support their team despite not only their recent poor run of results but also while a prime time World Cup semifinal clash between Argentina and Croatia was taking place.

No matter though, as soon as Messina walked into the arena, the crowd gave the bench boss a standing ovation as he walked from the tunnel to the bench area close to the journalists area right behind one of the baskets.

As Maccabi came out to warmup roughly an hour and a quarter prior to tip off, the pressure from the players, staff and management was in the air. Katash knew that he would need to find a way to win this matchup to quiet down the critics while also getting the road trip off to a gold start. It’s never easy to win on the road no matter what your record may indicate, from 5-0 to 0-5 which was the Israeli squad’s mark as well as my personal road trip record, ahead of the battle.

But as the defeats pile up, everyone surrounding the team felt the need, the pressure and the mental frustration that most probably seeped into the players heads to find a way to come away from the last place team’s home with a victory.

While most people come to Italy to shop or to watch soccer, or as they say in the country Calcio, Maccabi did and will be doing pretty much none of that as they were staying at a hotel less than a stone’s throw away from the Forum where they were based for four days of their Italian journey,

As the game got off to a quick start, Lorenzo Brown, who will have to burden the load as the main floor general due to Wade Baldwin’s injury nailed a pair of triples as he began to make his mark that saw the Eurobasket title holder score 20 points, grab 5 rebounds and dish out 8 assists for a 20 efficiency rating. But a valiant Milano squad fought back to lead Maccabi at times by double digits as they went into halftime up by 8-points, 40-32 over the yellow-and blue.

Katash’s crew came flying out of the gate to begin the second half but that hot start didn’t really make much of a difference as Messina found away to take a 10 point lead as the period started to come to a close. But all of a sudden John Dibartolomeo, Bonzie Colson and Roman Sorkin all found points which led to a magnificent, MVP fourth quarter performance by the aforementioned Sorkin who scored 12 of his 14 points in the final 13 minutes of the game.

When the final buzzer sounded, there seemed to have been a huge weight lifted off of the entire Maccabi franchise’s shoulders was in the air. Whether it was Shimon Mizrachi who has spent more than 50 years as the chairman of the club shaking my hand for what seemed to an eternity which was followed by another hand shake that went on forever with Roman Sorkin, or Katash waiting to go on TV for his postgame comments and sighing heavily with a huge sense of relief, this victory gave Maccabi not only a win, but a chance to really put the losing streak behind them and look ahead to the upcoming games with a clean sheet.

In the lockerroom, I quickly sidled up to Lorenzo Brown to disused his performance but also to look ahead to the Bologna contest coming up. The guard was no doubt relieved as any picture of him from immediately following the game would claim.

As for what occurred at halftime for Maccabi to come out and shut Milano down with a second half that saw Brown’s team outscore the hosts 45-31, the guard explained that it was a combination of a number of things at both ends of the floor.

“A little bit of everything. We just wanted it tonight so that was for us, the coach and the organization. It’s a great feeling right now. Like I said – we’re not satisfied with this one win, because we know we’re better than that on the road, we need to keep going.”

Brown also started to profoundly think of the upcoming confrontation that awaits him against his national team coach Sergio Scariolo and Bologna on Friday, “I’m excited. I’m sure he’s excited as well. I haven’t seen him since, so I’m just looking forward to what he has planned – I’m ready for the challenge.”

Scariolo for his part told me on Wednesday night following Bologna’s 85-76 win over Tamir Blatt and Yovel Zoosman’s Alba Berlin that he was super excited for the matchup, “We know each other very well it’s gonna be no surprises. He’s an unbelievable player. Last summer he made another big step forward in terms of really getting into the status of Euroleague superstar. He is actually an incredible player. Can score, can make other players score. Top player. Absolutely. First level player. Good offensively, good defensively, good passing, good steals, good shooting I mean I’m really happy with the choice I did last summer I think it was a big part of our team.”

“I love him personally. He’s an unbelievable person. He gave us so many proofs of commitment, really of desire to help the team of generosity and of unselfishness, I would love to see him. I hope to have coffee with him talk about next summer. Friday’s gonna be a pain. Definitely gonna be a big pain in our a—.”

While it’s a normal occurrence that Americans represent another country in international competition, it was surprising to not only see Spain bring in a foreign national but also that the players would be one Lorenzo Brown.

“It was just a shot in the dark,” the guard said. “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. At the end, it was a very humbling experience for me and for those guys as well, because I’m new, you know, the situation was different for them and me. We all accepted it and we made it work out for the best.”

In fact, one of his Spanish teammates Xabi Lopez-Arostegui spoke about what Brown meant to the team’s success, “Lorenzo is a great guy, very calm and very humble. He is very talented basketball wise and he came in the summer to help us and he played amazing. But even if he didn’t play amazing he was one of us, part of the family and I think he enjoyed the time with us. He is super skilled and super talented and he knows how to play basketball for the team and he loves basketball also.”

Small forward Kyle Weems, one of Scariolo’s lieutenants at Bologna realizes that Brown, a player that he knows very well will be one tough cookie to handle come Friday evening, “I’m sure he will. I’ve been watching Lorenzo Brown pretty much his whole European career from Red Star to Fener and to now. He’s a great player and great talent. It remember playing on the same team as him at Adidas Nations back in our senior year of college. I’ve got a lot of respect for him, he a great player and great talent and their teams goes as he goes. It’s going to be important for us to contain him.”

Maccabi teammate Roman Sorkin took it a step further as he told me in the lockerroom while he was chilling out after the clash, “He [Brown] is our leader. Every night he gives us his best and we need to come and help him- I’m happy that today we did. Another big game for him, it’s great that he’s with us.”

As the big showdown looms on the horizon, nothing but a win will suffice for Brown as he was trying to put aside the club’s first road victory of the season and move on to the task at hand, “For sure man. It feels great, but we still have more games to go. We were waiting on that one to break the curse. We still aren’t satisfied.”