Maccabi Tel Aviv came up short once again as they fell to Baskonia 95-85 in a game that was never that close as a red hot Markus Howard scored at will throughout the 40 minutes to drop the yellow-and-blue’s record to 4-12 on the season. Oded Katash’s squad kept the game close early on as Jaylen Hoard and Tamir Blatt found points, but Howard started to heat up along with Nikolaos Rogkavopoulos, Tadas Sedekerskis and Donta Hall all finding the basket to give Pablo Laso’s team a 57-43 advantage at halftime.

Chima Moneke made his presence felt in the second half while Rokas Jokubaitius and Roman Sorkin tried to keep the game within striking range but could not as the visitors rolled to the victory. Jokubaitus and Sorkin both scored 22 points while Blatt and Hoard scored 14 points a piece in the loss. Howard dropped 28 points, Moneke put in 17 points, Sedekerskis chipped in with 12 points and Rogkavopoulos scored 11 points in the win.

“There are some games where we missed a lot of shots and on the other side they hit some tough shots, at the end of the shot clock and all of the 50/50 balls went to their side. That can happen,” Maccabi Tel Aviv Head Coach Oded Katash began. “The thing is that we really played the score and we lost our body language and energy. Missing Jasiel Rivero and early in the game missing Wenyen Gabriel didn’t help us. But still we have to learn from this and we can’t play the score. When we are focused we are a good basketball team but today wasn’t our day and that can happen.”

“We know that we are playing a tough schedule and we knew that this would be very demanding,” Baskonia Head Coach Pablo Laso said. “We were solid on both ends of the floor until the last few minutes but we worked very well in the first and second quarters and played our best 20 minutes of the year. We moved the ball and found opportunities and picked up an important victory ahead of going to play the Euroleague Champions in OAKA, Panathinakos.”
Roman Sorkin spoke about the game that was, “We need to focus mainly on ourselves. We didn’t play well today, we have to admit that. We need to focus on the next game, we don’t have much time. We have learn lessons from this one and look ahead.”

Jaylen Hoard with a 3-point play and a layup from Wenyen Gabriel opened up the scoring for Maccabi Tel Aviv while Donta Hall and Trent Forrest came back with points for Baskonia, Levi Randolph and China Moneke traded baskets, Tamir Blatt went for a pair from deep and Hall put in two baskets in the paint to not the game up at 15-15 midway through the first quarter.

Roman Sorkin scored inside, Markus Howard went from deep, Kamar Baldwin did the same, Nikolaos Rogkavopoulos went from the inside and outside while Tadas Sedekerskis added a deuce to give Pablo Laso’s team a 34-23 led after ten minutes of play.

Rokas Jokubaitis scored to begin the second quarter, but Rogkavopoulos, Howard and Sedekerskis went from downtown, Sorkin tried to keep the yellow-and-blue in the game with a pair of buckets, Hoard did the same and Blatt went from beyond the arc but Howard for a deuce and Sander Raieste scored from deep gave Baskonia a 57-43 advantage at halftime.

Forrest, Moneke and Howard all found the bottom of the basket to get the third quarter off and running while Jokubatis, Sorkin and Hoard responded to cut the lead down to single digits 65-56 midway through the frame. Moneke came right back with five straight points, Sorkin and Howard traded points while Marina Shayok closed out the quarter with a basket but Baskonia remained in cruise control with a 75-60 lead after thirty minute of action.

Blatt went from deep, Howard added a pair of buckets, Jake Cohen scored, Rogkavopoulos aded a deuce, Howard scored a triple while Jokubaitis scored points a plenty but it was too little to late as Baskonia took the 10-point victory.