Without Goudelock and Landsberg, Maccabi fell behind early and had trouble fighting back. Zirbes showed a lot of promise with 15 points, Pnini added 13. This evening: Barcelona
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Maccabi Fox Tel Aviv suffered its first loss for the season: 68:78 to Panathinaikos as part of the special tournament honoring Dimitris Diamantidis. Today Maccabi will face Barcelona (18:30) before returning to Israel on Sunday.
Zirbes led Maccabi with 15 points, Rudd scored 14, Pnini added 13 and was perfect from the field. Also scored: Ohayon 7, Seeley 6, Mekel and Iverson 4 each, Weems 3, Segev 2.
Maccabi started the game without Andrew Goudelock and Sylven Landsberg who were not cleared to play. Despite some nice moves by Zirbes inside, Maccabi fell behind, mainly due to a less than perfect effort on defense and some turnovers.
Panathinaikos kept pressing as the lead grew up to 21 points in the third quarter. A valiant effort by Pnini and Rudd towards the end managed to get Maccabi back within 10, but that was as close as it got.
“We have a lot of talent”, Said Guy Pnini, “It’s just a matter of getting to that point where it shows during games. That takes time, we’re still getting to know each other. We definitely have a lot of work ahead of us but I’m optimistic”.
Maik Zirbes added: “We weren’t dominant enough and it cost us the game. Now we know what’s waiting for us this year in the Euroleague .We were lacking some important players today and we didn’t look bad for the entire game. I’m sure we’ll get better”.
