Final Four on the line / The moment of truth has arrived
By Erez Michaeli
For years the local league served as a warm-up for Maccabi Tel Aviv's battles in Europe. However, it's the other side of the coin this year. In the league Maccabi has endured Bnei Hasharon's clean three-game sweep, a meltdown in the Cup final, drubbings by Ramat Gan and Holon and a struggle to defeat lowly Galil Elyon. Yet the team has had a relatively easy time in the Euroleague.
There are root causes for what has happened. The departure of several big stars for the NBA weakened the Euroleague in recent years. Local talents have left too soon, to be replaced by mediocre Americans. While Maccabi is still bursting with foreigners, most European clubs have diluted their U.S. contingent to two or three players.
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Another point in Maccabi's favor is the poor scouting of its European rivals. Everyone in the Premier League knows Omri Casspi's strengths, Alex Garcia's speed or Nikola Vujcic's difficulty posting up against an athletic front line. In contrast, when a team allows Esteban Batista to fire away from the left side and Terrence Morris to pull down boards off of Will Bynum misses, it's a sign that somebody in the Europe didn't do his homework. That's how Maccabi sans true point guard has become the club with the most assists in both the group and knockout stages.
Yad Eliahu stadium has also been a factor this year, and there's no comparing 11,000 ecstatic fans against Barcelona to a few hundred against Holon. For a team lacking consistency and mental stability, it's a matter of night and day.
The series with Barcelona creates more familiarity and is thus Maccabi's toughest and most important test so far this season. After two meetings Xavier Pascal's club should have figured out Tel Aviv's strengths and weaknesses, plus they've now experienced the Yad Eliahu crowd. Barcelona has to be prepared for any tricks Maccabi's coach Zvi Sherf may pull out of his bag, and the Spaniards are aware of all the pressure on their hosts. Should Team Catalan collapse in Tel Aviv, it'll bear testimony to the paucity of the Euroleague.
Assuming the visitors have done their homework, Maccabi will have to prove it has what it takes to win big games: brains and coolness at the decisive moments. We haven't seen much of either this season, but if the team demonstrates it tonight against Barcelona, Maccabi will have something to fall back on come the Final Four of Europe.
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