By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
A break obviously means that the home court advantage is turned around and that’s what Maccabi Tel Aviv did on Wednesday night. However, a break, specially a 1-0, doesn’t also guarantee qualification to the final four.
In total since the first 2000-01 season of the modern Euroleague era, there have been five breaks in the first game. Still, in three of those cases the team which got the break finally qualified to the semifinals and in two others in the end the break didn’t mean anything.
To be exact Tau Ceramika -a.k.a. Laboral Kutxa – back in 2000-01 beat Olympiacos and finished the best of three series with a 2-0, in the 2009-10 series Maccabi Tel Aviv lost to Partizan and the Serbs prevailed with a 3-1 and Olympiacos did the same (3-1) against Siena in the 2011-12 season. On the other hand, Olympiacos beat CSKA at Moscow during the 2007-08 play offs, but the Russians in the end got the qualification with a total of 2-1 wins and the next season Tau Ceramika started with a win against Barcelona, however in the end the Catalans prevailed with 3-2.
So, despite its defeat EA7 Milano can bounce back and despite its win Maccabi Tel Aviv has to keep pushing. After all specially a best of five series always favors the best team. The series between the Italians and the Israelis is more than balanced, the first game was decided by two points in overtime, so nothing is finished yet.