Maccabi Tel Aviv keeps Euroleague Playoff hopes alive with win over Fenerbahce

It was yet another game that demonstrated yet again how critical the club’s Israeli contingent is, as Roman Sorkin and Tamir Blatt both starred for Oded Katash’s squad. But it wasn’t only Sorkin and Blatt, it was also the yellow-and-blue’s veteran captain John DiBartolomeo along with foreigners Oshae Brissett, Jimmy Clark and Jaylen Hoard who helped Maccabi defeat the first-place team and chalk up the win that keeps the club still “in the game” for a postseason slot as the season winds down. If Maccabi would have come up short, well, it would have pretty much been curtains, but now with a record of 16-16, good for 12th place.

Katash’s crew is still there and competing for a Play-In spot with six games to go. In Belgrade, Maccabi wartime home away from home, against reigning Euroleague champion Fenerbahce, the yellow-and-blue showed what it is made of and that it is certainly worthy of a place in the postseason. Maccabi is now two wins out of 10th place and three victories for a spot between sixth and ninth, where four teams all have a 19-14 record.

There’s no question that this is a big hill still to climb, but not an impossible one. Should Tel Aviv go 6-0 in its final six matchups, it would be very hard to see how it would not clinch a Play-In spot with a record of 22-16. Even if it goes 5-1, it will have a chance going down to the wire which at this stage of the season, knowing how it began and where it’s going to end, would be very admirable.

Hapoel Tel Aviv. (credit: YEHUDA HALICKMAN) Katash not only has worked his magic in a more than difficult situation that almost saw him on the way out a number of months ago, but it was the trust he placed in the Israeli players on his roster that ultimately paid dividends. Whether it was Sorkin and Blatt against Fener and ASVEL, or Gur Lavy who has started to look like a legitimate Euroleague player in the making, or 35-year old captain DiBartolomeo who has turned back the clock time and time again, along with Will Rayman, it’s been the Israeli contingent that has kept the Maccabi boat afloat.