It all came together for Maccabi at the perfect time on Tuesday as the Israeli champs routed Baskonia to claim a playoff ticket
Scouting, defense and fun led Maccabi to record play-in win
There is only a handful of head coaches in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague to have won it all as a player. Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv’s Oded Kattash is among them, though ironically his crown came as a member of the team he will now face in the playoffs next week, Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens.
Kattash leaned into his playing experience when he addressed his players right before they took the floor for Tuesday’s Play-In Showdown opener against Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz.
“Try to enjoy this. Enjoy the situation. Don’t be afraid of losing,” Kattash told them. “Especially in the situation that was created with the play-in, to look at it as one game, to do the things we know how to do, to play our basketball.”
And Maccabi played its game from the start, leading from tip to buzzer in recording a no-doubt-about-it 113-85 victory. It might have been Maccabi’s best game all season.
The Israeli champs drained a club-record and EuroLeague postseason record 19 three-pointers. The 113 points scored were the most in any postseason game for Maccabi since the night it poured in 118 to win the EuroLeague in 2004 in Tel Aviv. And Lorenzo Brown set Maccabi postseason records for three-pointers made and points scored with 7 and 29, respectively.
Like in all successes, there were many causes for the victory. But seemingly everyone at Maccabi agreed on a few main points: Great scouting, focused players, tough defense and having fun.
After he dominated for the winners, Brown’s initial thoughts were not about his own performance.
“Great scouting by our coaches, I feel like they should get their credit for that,” Brown said. “Markus Howard was our focus and I feel like the guys that guarded him tonight did a hell of a job by stopping his three-point shot and his penetration.”
Indeed, Howard, the regular season’s leading scorer, was limited to 3 points on 1-of-8 shooting in the first half as Maccabi raced to a 55-36 advantage, which it increased in the second half even as Howard started to score more.
One of the players responsible for slowing down Howard was Antonius Cleveland, who accounted for 11 points in 18 minutes off the bench.
“Total team effort,” Cleveland said, before adding: “We had fun and I think the scoreboard showed that.”
Wade Baldwin, who posted 26 points and 5 assists, added: “Today was a team win. Everybody was very locked in and focused.”
Kattash agreed: “This wasn’t the type of thing you could plan or feel before the game, though we felt this morning that the players were good. We spoke about the game plan and felt they were focused and ready.”
That focus and effort was apparent from the start, as Maccabi forced 5 first-quarter turnovers while building a double-digit lead that it not only protected the rest of the way, but continued adding to. The players' hustle could be seen from the fact that they outrebounded Baskonia 38-27 and enjoyed a 23-8 cushion in second-chance points.
“You can’t always see it on me, but I am very happy. This is a great accomplishment for us,” Kattash added.
Maccabi can bask in that accomplishment for a day or so, but by next Tuesday, the coaching staff will have to have done their scouting work and the players must be focused and ready when they open the playoffs in Athens.
“We're going into the belly of the beast. It’s a Greek atmosphere that’s one of the top in Europe, so we’ve got to be ready,” Baldwin summed up. “A great matchup, two very good teams, we’ll see how it plays out.”