1. The faces on the bench of Maccabi Tel Aviv at the end of the victory last night (Thursday) 73:85 over the Red Star ranged between smiles and relief. On the one hand, Oded Ketch’s team interrupted an unflattering record of ten losses from the last 11 games while playing very good basketball. On the other hand, Maccabi also know that after such a bad season, it’s hard to celebrate victories.
The yellows came after a great victory in the cup over Ness Ziona, and managed to stand the key of the first quarter which they finished with a point lead, with excellent minutes by Tamir Blat. In the second quarter, John DiBartholomew took over the game, scoring 3 three-pointers in the quarter, giving Maccabi a 12-point lead after 20 minutes and a lot of confidence to continue. The Yellows saw the star threatening a comeback in the third quarter, but remained firm, received a contribution from Trevion Williams as well, stopped the run and ended the game.
DiBartolomeu finished the game with 15 points and 5 rebounds, Tamir Blatt added 14, 6 rebounds and 4 assists while Jaylen Hurd finished with 13 and 4 steals. Roman Sorkin with 12 and Rokas Iukovaitis with 11 also scored in double figures.
“A really good game by us, it started from the training sessions before the quarter-finals of the cup,” said Tamir Blatt, “I feel that we are in a positive direction, we are raising our defense, we are all more committed, I am happy that we had a nice victory. We are all waiting for the hostages, that it will come as soon as possible , to come see our games.”
Jaylen Hurd added: “We had a great week of training, even last time we played against them very well. We were defensively focused, we put everything right on the field. We showed a lot of fight and I’m glad it ended like this. The coach said that what’s important is our intensity In defense, and not how fast we attack, and I think that was significant.”
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