The big man finished with 17 points, 6 rebounds, including 3 on the offensive end, and 2 blocks
Healthy Bolomboy showed how much he means for Crvena Zvezda
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Regular Season
Round 17 of 34
Group Regular Season
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It was an up-and-down first half of the regular season for Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade, but after its 91-83 win over Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv on Friday, the team sits with a winning 9-8 record
In the first half it seemed as though Zvezda could enter cruise control as it held a 48-33 lead, but this is the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague – and Maccabi started the third quarter with a 0-17 run.
Asked if he remembers such a bad five-minute period from his team, coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos was honest.
"I don't remember. It must not happen again," he said. "We lost our concentration, and we must not give up when things don't go our way."
However, Zvezda had two players who came to save the day in playmaker Yago dos Santos and, even more importantly, center Joel Bolomboy.
"This was Joel's best game since he came back from injury," Sfairopoulos said, after Bolomboy finished with 17 points on 8-of-11 two-point shooting, 6 rebounds, including 3 on the offensive end, and 2 blocks.
"I think we understood how much we missed Bolomboy in this month and a half that he has been out," Sfairopoulos stated.
For Bolomboy, getting back on the basketball court is simply a great feeling.
"I missed it a lot," he said in a post-game interview with EuroLeague TV. "It was a long two months. Thankfully, I did not need surgery, but rehab was rehab. I was on crutches for three weeks and had a brace, could not even walk normal, so to be here to be playing, winning, is a huge win for me, personally."
Bolomboy, who returned on Wednesday after missing 11 games, played 29 minutes against Maccabi.
"My conditioning is not back to what is used to be – a couple of times I was really gassed. But I played through those times, my conditioning will come."
The big man helped the team get back to winning ways and remove a bitter taste the team had after playing a bad second half in a 21-point loss against Anadolu Efes Istanbul just 48 hours later.
And it got Zvezda back to a winning record, something that Sfairopoulos thinks should please all Zvezda fans.
"[Our record] could have been better, we lost some games in the end, but we won some games that nobody expected we could win, like in Monaco and at Fenerbahce," said the Greek tactician.
"We must walk on the Earth, we cannot fly. We fight really hard, we try to build something good, step by step. There is no magic stick."
Just two wins away from first place, and with a healthy starting center who has such an important role, Zvezda has positioned itself nicely as it enters the second half of the regular season.