By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Maccabi Tel Aviv set a new club record for 3-pointers with 19 to destroy Baskonia 113 – 85 and get the 7th position in the EuroLeague Play-In. The Israeli side will face second-placed Panathinaikos Athens, with the Greens having homecourt advantage.
Baskonia will get another chance against the winner of the Anadolu Efes – Virtus Bologna game.
Lorenzo Brown led Maccabi with a season-high 29 points on 6-9 triples. He also grabbed five rebounds and dished out five assists. Wade Baldwin joined him with 26 points plus five assists and Bonzie Colson contributed 14 points.
“It’s a beautiful feeling right now. Striving all year and going through adversity,” Brown said. “But we’ve been sticking with it and staying together. That’s the most important part of our team. Guys are having a great season but right now it’s about the playoffs and paying attention to details. It’s been a long year for me playing through injury but, like I said we’ve been pushing through it.”
“We’re going to the belly of the beast,” Baldwin added on what he expects at Panathinaikos’ OAKA arena.
Too much Maccabi offense
Codi Miller-McIntyre had an outstanding performance for Baskonia, putting up a career-high 32 points, along with eight rebounds and seven assists. Yet he didn’t have much help from his teammates in the larger part of the game and the Basque team collectively couldn’t halt the fiery action of Maccabi, especially from range.
Markus Howard added 14 points to Baskonia’s output but shot 5 out of 14 from the field. Tadas Sedekerskis had 11 points and seven rebounds. “Congratulations to Maccabi,” Baskonia coach Dusko Ivanovic said. “Better team, more aggressive. Very effective in their shooting. Lorenzo Brown was excellent. We didn’t have a chance tonight and we’ll see in the next game.”
Maccabi had built a 20+ margin by halftime thanks to Brown’s offense as the guard had 23 of his points by the break. Baskonia cut the deficit to 55 – 41 but Brown and Baldwin raised the advantage of their team to 75 – 52 with 3:35 to play in the third quarter. The Yellows kept a commanding lead for the rest of the game.
“I’m very happy for the players,” Maccabi coach Oded Kattash said. “Before we got out of the locker room, I told the players to just enjoy it, they deserve it and play our game. Most of the game we executed really well offensively and defensively. I think we deserve to be in the playoffs in this crazy year. I’m very happy for the Maccabi organization and the players most of all, they’ve shown a lot of character.”