Maccabi Tel Aviv welcome Olympiacos on Thursday (21:05 Israel time) in Euroleague action for their first continental clash of the new year. After not having played due to a COVID-19 outbreak throughout the ranks of the Yellow & Blue since December 29th when they fell at Monaco, Ioannis Sfairopoulos’s squad has been dormant save for a league contest at Herzliya 17 days ago.

The team got back to training this week and had a good week of practices explained guard Keenan Evans at the pregame media scrum, however, how they will look in actual game action is an entirely different story as they will have to shake off the rust that comes along with a lengthy break.

Just as a reminder, Maccabi are in the midst an 8-game Euroleague losing streak for an overall record of 7-11 and will try not to add to their misery when they face a pair of former Yellow & Blue players in Tyler Dorsey and Quincy Acy. But as they say, easier said than done.

Olympiacos under the direction of Georgios Bartzokas have played exceptionally and consistently well as they find themselves in 3rd place with a 12-6 record and will no doubt cause Maccabi trouble as they try to get back onto the winning track.

Was the break good or bad for Maccabi? We will find that out over the next week or so when Sfairopoulos will have to face not only Olympiacos but Alba Berlin and Fenerbahce at home along with a domestic Derby at Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Sitting in 13th place with a 7-11 record is certainly not ideal and not the position that coach Sfairopoulos, the players and management envisioned themselves being in mid-January. The club may be heading into what is considered a restart, however, that doesn’t wipe the slate clean as the games begin again anew.

There is no going back to correct that 7-11 record and trying to advance to the playoffs which means Maccabi Tel Aviv has now 16 games to find a way to get their record to a point where the club can make it into the quarterfinals. That will be quite the uphill battle in which the Yellow & Blue will need to go 11-5 to finish the campaign with a record of 18-16 which should be good enough to get them into the playoffs, but still not a guarantee. For that you’d need 19 wins and a 12-4 record between now and the end of the season.

Granted the club has 9 home games to 7 road tilts, there is no reason to think right now in the midst of an 8 game losing streak that they could punch their ticket to the promised land.

Impossible? No. Likely, not really. But yet the games need to be played and with that there is still hope to find the right mix on the court to begin winning games once again.

There are questions that will need to be answered once Maccabi gets back onto the court and that begins with how Sfairopoulos will use his squad over the next week and how he will allocate minutes to the players.

Khyri Thomas joins the club and will make his debut at some point during this stretch of games. It will certainly be interesting to see how he will fit in to the rotation and lineup considering he will probably take Kameron Taylor’s minutes who is rumored to be heading the other way and may be playing somewhere else sometime soon.

Embattled James Nunally gets a new life and another chance to find his scoring touch in order to make a difference with the club after having not been dressed for a number of games leading up to the unexpected and unplanned COVID-19 break in the action.

Scottie Wilbekin looked like he needed a break in the worst way and he got it probably at the right time after having inconsistent performances over the month prior to their last game. The star of the show will hopefully be back with renewed energy as Maccabi will try to make a push for what right now seems as just a pipe dream.

There are yet many other questions that we’ll find out answers soon enough from Jake Cohen tp Angelo Caloiaro and from John Dibartolomeo to Derrick Williams and Jalen Reynolds.

Will some players who had been struggling be a able to perform at the level that was expected of them? Will some continue as they were prior to the break? Will some take the new love handed to them and really impress?

Those questions and many others will begin to be answered when they take to the court against Olympiacos wearing their limited edition white uniforms on a day that Ralph Klein and Yehoshua Rozin will be inducted into the Maccabi Tel Aviv Hall of Fame.

The two coaches exemplified and personified what Maccabi Tel Aviv stood for. Now will be the 2022 version of the club’s chance to show that they can step into those shoes and wear the club’s emblem with pride.