Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv has officially reached the 2023 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Playoffs, becoming the fifth team this season to qualify for the postseason. The team booked its place in the playoffs following a 28-27 loss on the road at Zalgiris Kaunas on Thursday, which gave it a 19-14 record after the penultimate round of action in the regular season.
Maccabi qualified for the playoffs because at 19 wins it cannot lose any possible tiebreaker. The one that could have potentially eliminated Maccabi at the end of the regular season was a three-way tie with Baskonia and Zalgiris for seventh, eighth and ninth place. With all three teams splitting home wins, Maccabi is -15 head-to-head against Baskonia, and now is even head-to-head against Zalgiris after each team won by a 1-point margin on home floor. But since Zalgiris is -16 in head-to-head games against Baskonia, in such three-way tie, Baskonia would be seventh, Maccabi eighth and Zalgiris ninth. Thanks to Partizan sweeping Zalgiris and Baskonia sweeping Fenerbahce, Maccabi cannot be worse than eighth anymore, therefore, it qualifies for the playoffs for the second straight season.
Maccabi will not be able to clinch home-court advantage because Olympiacos Piraeus, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and AS Monaco have already wrapped up the top four spots in the standings. Heading into the final round next week, Maccabi seeks another win to lock up the five seed. However, it already knows that a possible Game 5 would be played away from Tel Aviv.
Road to playoffs
Maccabi started the season strong with four wins against Zalgiris, Monaco, LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne and Panathinaikos Athens in the first five games. Granted, those wins all arrived at Menora Mivtachim Arena and, while a sticky patch soon arrived, the team responded by putting together another 4-1 stretch between Rounds 12 and 16 – the last of which was an 80-72 win against back-to-back reigning champion Anadolu Efes Istanbul – to get back on track.
One defining factor for Maccabi throughout this season has been its ability to turn Menora Mivtachim Arena into a fortress, as the team regularly picked up victories at home. In fact, despite recording just its third road win of the season in Round 23, beating Valencia Basket 93-94, Maccabi's results in Tel Aviv meant that it remained firmly in the race to make the playoffs. Then, a six-game winning streak between Rounds 27 and 32, which included wins over playoff-chasing trio Fenerbahce, Efes and Baskonia, as well as an offensive clinic in a 111-80 victory against Virtus Segafredo Bologna, all but sealed the team's progress to the postseason. With a league-best 14-2 home record in its back pocket, confirmation of Maccabi's playoff spot finally arrived in Round 33, when it beat Zalgiris XX-XX on the road at Zalgirio Arena.
Playoff experience
Maccabi has an experienced roster with regard to the EuroLeague Playoffs. Plenty of the team's players have taken part in key series over the years, be it with Maccabi or with another team. Yet, only two players know what it is like to advance to the Final Four. Darrun Hilliard did so with CSKA Moscow in 2021, only to fall in the semifinals to the eventual champion, Efes. The only other player on the roster to have ever won a playoff series is Guy Pnini, who not only played in the Final Four but won it, as Maccabi beat Real Madrid in the 2014 championship game in Milan. He also played in the 2011 Final Four, losing in Europe's showpiece fixture to Panathinaikos.
The team's star backcourt of Wade Baldwin and Lorenzo Brown, as well as the likes of Austin Hollins and Alex Poythress, have all played playoff series for other teams, such as FC Bayern Munich, Fenerbahce and Zenit St Petersburg. Meanwhile, EuroLeague rookies Bonzie Colson and Jarell Martin will get a taste of the playoffs at the first time of asking. Elsewhere, Maccabi veterans Jake Cohen and John DiBartolomeo will be looking to make it to the Final Four for the first time in their careers.
Playoff history
Since the new EuroLeague playoff format was introduced in the 2004-05 season, Maccabi has appeared in a total of 11 series and advanced to the Final Four on six occasions. In those series, the Israeli side played a total 37 games, winning 43.2% of those contests for a total record of 16-21. Maccabi has also been involved in four series sweeps: one in its favor (2004-05 against Scavolini Pesaro) and three against (2013 against Real, 2015 against Fenerbahce and 2022 against Real again).
In 2022, Maccabi returned to the playoffs after a surprise five-season absence, which meant that one of the biggest clubs in the EuroLeague could finally taste postseason basketball once again. However, it fell to Real Madrid, losing 0-3. Before that, in 2015, Maccabi was also swept 0-3 by Fenerbahce. One year before, in 2014, the Israeli team completed a storybook season by lifting the trophy in Milan after defeating Real Madrid 86-98 in overtime. That triumph was Maccabi's second since the new playoff format began in 2004-05, as it became the back-to-back champion at the 2005 Final Four in Moscow. After dominating Skipper Bologna in the 2004 championship game, 118-74, Maccabi followed that up with a 91-82 win against Panathinaikos Athens one year later.
