Maccabi Tel Aviv (13-12, equal 6th place) finds itself on the French Riviera on Thursday, where it will face AC Monaco (15-10, 5th place) at 22:00 IST / 15:00 EST) in their round 26 EuroLegaue clash. After a week’s break from local leagues for the FIBA World Cup Qualifying window, it’s the first game for both teams since round 25. For Monaco, they’re returning home after a tough 80-70 road loss to Barcelona, while the Yellow & Blue are coming off a 90-82 victory over Bayern Munich in Tel Aviv on the back of a 29-15 last quarter.

These teams last met in round 3 of the current EuroLeague season back in October, when similarly to last their game last week, Maccabi had a come-from-behind to beat the Monégasque visitors 78-70 courtesy of a 26-11 last quarter. Playing catchup has become a theme for Maccabi this season, but they will need to find a way to be consistent for four quarters if they are to make a playoff run.

“We’re better in the second half,” Maccabi coach Oded Katash admitted. “While we also need to give credit that we can return from the deficit, in order to win on Monaco’s court, we need to be more consistent.”

Forward Jarell Martin confirmed that the team is conscious of the issue: “That’s what coach has been talking about the last couple of days, having slow starts and coming back in the second half and picking it up. We’ve got to do that better as a team, starting off the game, and getting going in the first and second quarter so we don’t have to fight back into the game.”

These teams’ guards were on show back in October, with Wade Baldwin IV and Lorenzo Brown producing for 34 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists in just under 69 minutes combined for Maccabi, while Monaco’s Jordon Lloyd, Mike James and Elie Okobo had 45 points, 13 rebounds and 7 assists in 76 minutes combined. Tonight should be another enticing battle between the two backcourts.

“We are playing against 3 scorers at the highest level of EuroLegaue,” Katash said of the backcourt battle. We also have players like this, but a different type. We like to play faster, with more continuance and less possession. We need to be precise on whom to attack. As for the standard defenders, they have a few who are at a high level, and we need to know where to attach.”

After losing the rebound count against Bayern last week, Roman Sorkin – who had a game-high 9 rebounds back in October – noted that this is something that Maccabi has also focused on over the past week: “We worked a lot on our rebounding and on ourselves mainly so we can come prepared.”

So can Maccabi grab a rare 2022/2023 road win against a team above them in the standings? It’s going to be a challenge, but the players seem up for it.

“We know it’s been tough on us this whole season, finding ways to get wins on the road,” Martin said. “But we’re ready – we know how important it is to finish out the season strong to make the post season.”

“I think we’re in good shape,” Sorkin said. “We won the last game. We have a new game that is important to us now when there’s a very tight table – we need to win it.”