Hapoel Tel Aviv defeated Kiryat Ata 95-81 as Yam Madar and Tai Odiase paced the reds who got back onto the winning track following a tough loss at Hapoel Galil Elyon less than 24 hours earlier. Odiase scored 22 points and Madar dropped 20 points in the win while Yuval Hochstader scored 15 points in the loss.

Reds Head Coach Dimitris Itoudis summed up the win, “I think from the beginning we set the tone and as part of the game plan, the priority was not to allow them points in transition. They do score a lot of points in transition and base their game on full-court pressure, they play more or less like a college team. They press the entire court and trap the ball and they kept doing it for 40 minutes. So we wanted to be consistent in that area and we succeeded most of the time.”

Kiryat Ata bench boss Eldad Bentov spoke about the loss, “Yam (Madar) hurt us a lot in the first half and in the second half it was mainly the big men. It’s clear the relegation battle will go all the way, we experienced that last year as well. We paid a very heavy price because of the war; basically all the foreign players left us and everyone here is new. We’re trying to coordinate and reorganize the team and you can see that on the offensive end as well, in the third quarter we got stuck offensively, with poor decisions.”

Hapoel Holon slipped by Hapoel HaEmek 92-88 in a tight game that went right down to the wire. Adama Sanogo scored 20 points and Darin Green added 18 points in the win while Niv Misgav and Cameron Henry each scored 15 points in the loss.