Valencia Basket defends streak and playoff place against Maccabi

Valencia Basket defends streak and playoff place against Maccabi

MADRID, 1 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Valencia Basket will defend its great moment in the Regular Phase of the Euroleague 2022-2023 and its status as a 'playoff' team this Thursday in La Fonteta (8:30 p.m.) against a direct rival such as the Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv.

The 'taronja' team achieved something unprecedented in its history on Tuesday, the fifth consecutive victory in the highest continental competition, after beating the German Bayern Munich (82-73), a new success that helped them rise to eighth place in the classification, thanks also precisely to the defeat of their next rival at the Palau Blaugrana (83-78).

Alex Mumbrú's men are currently the most toned team in this Euroleague of maximum equality and counting the last ten games, they have a record of 7-3, the same as the leader Olympiacos and Partizán. Only Red Star, in the first European game of 2023, has been able to beat in the continental competition.

The next rival for Valencia Basket is the always complicated and physical Maccabi, who hardly gave him any options in 'La Mano de Elías' (84-68), but who once again made it clear at the Palau that his level drops a bit when he plays as a visitor. A 21-11 run in the last quarter put an end to all the work done up to then and was their tenth loss out of twelve as a visitor, the fourth in a row.

Despite having formed a good squad, the Macabeo team has only been able to win on the field of the current last two classified, Armani Milan and ALBA Berlin, a bad statistic that they will try to improve in a Fonteta where they fell in their last visit for 82-80.

Maccabi will continue with the important loss of the Spanish nationalized point guard Lorenzo Brown, an absence that diminishes his offensive network and increases the importance of stopping the other game director, Wade Baldwin IV, who will have a nice duel against Chris Jones, Jared Harper and a Shannon Evans who made his Euroleague debut being important in the win against Bayern.

In addition, Valencia Basket will need to make another good effort in the 'paint' to alleviate the casualties of Bojan Dubljevic and Jasiel Rivero for one more game, especially against a team with a powerful physique and that is the best of the season in offensive rebounding. with more than 12 sacks per game.

"It is important to recover from the effort we had on Tuesday, to see if we are capable of playing against a very good team. With Brown gone, Baldwin has taken over and it will be difficult to stop, they also have a very strong inside game. It is a team that he is competing very well in every game and that we will have to be very good, especially defensively, to be able to stop his men, who are very upright and have a lot of scoring," Mumbrú warned in statements provided by his club.

VALENCIA BASKET: Jones, Radebaugh, Puerto, Claver and Alexander --possible starting five--; Harper, Pradilla, Webb III, Lopez-Arostegui, Evans, Prepelic, and Ferrando.

MACCABI TEL AVIV: Adams, Baldwin, Martin, Colson and Nebo --possible starting five--; Dibartolomeo, Menco, Sorkin, Hilliard, Cohen, Braimoh, and Ziv.

--REFEREES: Lottermoser, Nikolic and Racys.

-- PAVILION: La Fonteta.