Maccabi Tel Aviv is closing in on do or die time as they welcome Panathinaikos to Yad Eliyahu on Thursday (21:05) in Euroleague action. The yellow-and-blue dropped the front end of their double week to Olympiacos 100-93 in a game that was never that close as their record dropped to 9-14 good for 14th place in the standings while Panathinaikos dropped Baskonia 93-74 and are 14-9 which puts them in 8th.

Oded Katash’s squad find themselves in a very precarious position as they head into battle against the green Greeks and with every defeat they keep falling further and further behind a Play In spot. Currently they are four games behind Red Star Belgrade who are in 10th place with a 13-10 record and have three teams in front of them, Dubai with ten wins along with the two Italian teams, Milano and Bologna who have 11 victories a piece.

Make no mistake, four games behind in the win column is a helluva lot of ground to make up with 15 games to go in the regular season and as crazy as it sounds Maccabi will probably need to go at least 11-4 the rest of the way to just get into the Play In. That’s a very big ask especially in the club’s current situation.

Without Lonnie Walker for a minimum of two more weeks with a tear in his shoulder muscle, Maccabi has very steep uphill climb in order to win games that they desperately need to. Add to that the absence of captain John DIbartolomeo and Zach Hankins who are also out for at least a couple of weeks a piece and the cupboard is very, very bare in terms of depth.

On the positive side, Jeff Dowtin is back and put in a solid performance in the club’s loss at the Peace and Friendship Arena. The guard scored 15 points going 2/3 from two and 3/5 from deep which adding a pair of rebounds and two steals as he finished the game with an index rating of 15.

Katash is going to need Dowtin going into the next little stretch of games with Valencia and Red Star on the road while Partizan and Bayern Munich will be played at home which will lead up to the Cup break.

Ahead of what will mark Dowtin’s true Euroleague home debut he spoke about getting back onto the court and into action along with what he sees as the coach’s expatiations for him, “I’m just trying to continue to stay healthy, do a lot of treatment on my body and just get back in conditioning. I’m probably not 100% yet, but I’m slowly getting back there, so the Olympiacos game was good for me.”

“I’ve been seeing a lot of games here at Yad Eliyahu, I obviously haven’t been able to play yet, so I’m super excited for that. First time playing for that home crowd for a big game, so I’m excited.”

As for what he feels Katash will need to see from him filling the void left by those injured, the guard said, “I think just try to stay vocal, be a point guard, be a leader on the court, continue to make plays on offensive end, move the ball around, on defense being able to get stops and just kind of build that teammate chemistry.”

Katash, who seemed down at the media briefing spoke about what he expects to see from Panathinaikos, “As always, games against Panathinaikos are always intense. There’s history to these matchups, but regardless, it’s a double week and after a loss we want to show a response.”

“Panathinaikos is a very, very good offensive team. That’s something we know, also because objectively it’s not our strongest area, so it requires a collective effort. We need to attack correctly. They have a few defensive weak points that we need to know how to exploit wisely, and I think Sloukas is the barometer.”

Ergin Ataman’s side will most probably be missing star guard Kendrick Nunn and big man Dinos Mitoglu and Maccabi will need to take advantage of that in order to chalk up a victory to keep them in the longer game so to speak.

“We’ll see whether Nunn plays or not, yesterday he didn’t play,” Katash commented. “That’s significant, because it makes Kostas Sloukas the main go-to guy and again it’s a very different game plan. I really hope that here, with the energy of the crowd, we’ll be more consistent in that regard.”

Ataman shared his thoughts on the game, “Maccabi Tel Aviv is a team with great offensive capacity, as was also evident in their most recent game they won in Tel Aviv against Zalgiris Kaunas. They are a team that averages 94 points in the games they win. They also scored 93 points in Piraeus, so the key to the game will be defense and controlling the tempo on offense with fewer turnovers.”

Panathinaikos guard Panagiotis Kalaitzakis also spoke about the difference that Maccabi fans can make, “We are going to Tel Aviv with a different mentality; it has one of the hottest arenas of the last 15 years. We will go there to win the game. The ‘key’ is always defense, we may not have shown it in recent games. If we allow them to run, it will be a very difficult night. It’s an away game and we have to stop them.”

Should PAO stop Maccabi, it will make the situation for the yellow-and-blue much more difficult as they still dream of reaching the Play In. If they can pick up the victory they can stay in the game and battle for another day becausde with every loss, the possibility of going 11-4 is going to become slimmer and slimmer and slimmer.