The center remained red hot and the playmaker had his best game of the season to pace the Israeli champs.
Josh Nebo, Tamir Blatt led Maccabi to victory in Kaunas
Josh Nebo dominated the paint and Tamir Blatt filled Wade Baldwin’s shoes, with both Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv players making the difference in their team’s hard-fought 70-78 win at Zalgiris Kaunas. The Maccabi center set a new career high in points by bagging 22 at the Zalgirio Arena, just a few days after setting his previous career high of 18 points in Maccabi’s 92-98 loss at home against Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade.
Nebo shot 8-for-11 (72.7%) from inside the arc and a perfect 6-for-6 from the line. He also recorded 6 rebounds, including 4 offensive boards, 2 assists, 1 block and 4 drawn fouls for a career-high PIR of 27. This means that the 26-year-old has had double-digit PIRs in 13 of his last 14 games.
“I just wanted to make sure that we’ll come out and we’ll put our best effort on it, because it was important to come out as a team and bounce back from last week’s [defeat to Crvena Zvezda],” Nebo said after the game.
The former Zalgiris big man was happy to return to Kaunas, but he was not the only Maccabi player to step up on the night. Blatt also came to the fore in Baldwin’s absence by pairing a season-high 14 points with 8 assists. Zalgiris took a 33-32 lead into the second half, but Blatt netted a big triple to tie it, 35-35. That three-pointer served as the springboard for Maccabi’s comeback, with the visitors outscoring the Lithuanian champs 16-29 in the third quarter.
“We were smart tonight,” head coach Oded Kattash said after the game.” We used our big guys and this was a great performance by Tamir Blatt, who really helped us to win all kinds of situations. Tamir has given us a lot from the beginning of the season. Tonight, he stepped up and John Dibartolomeo and Rafi Menco also helped from the bench. Josh [Nebo] had a great game, but Tamir is confident and knows exactly what he’s doing.”
Despite not reaching its offensive standards, taking into account that they came into this game as the second-best offense in the league with an average of 87.0 points scored per game, Maccabi came out victorious from this clash thanks to their defense.
“We performed our game plan really well,” Roman Sorkin, who scored all his 11 points after the break, noted. “Defense is one of the things we’re trying to improve every week. I think we did a pretty good job with that too.”
Maccabi will return to action with a tough double-round week schedule. Kattash’s men will host AS Monaco on Tuesday, before playing away against Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul in a game that will take place two days later at the Kalnapilio Arena in Panevezys, Lithuania, instead of Istanbul as originally scheduled.