Bnei Herzliya eased past Maccabi Ramat Gan 104-88 as the Yehu Orland’s team scoedd early and often to take a 56-43 lead at halftime and never looked back as a half a dozen players scored in double digits. Shalev Lugashi scored 19 points, Zack Bryant added 18 points while both Evan Bruinsma and Jordon Varnado scored 17 points a piece in the win. Gil Beni and Terrell Brown scored 17 points each in the loss.

“We’re working on it and emphasizing it every day, and when it shows, it looks good—because today we scored over 100 points and no one scored more than 20,” Orland concluded, pleased with the distribution of assists. “That means we’re sharing the ball evenly, with quality and efficiency. After the result and the number of assists, I think our defense—the relatively high number of points Ramat Gan ended up scoring, 88—is a bit misleading in their favor. I think we did a job today that was worthy of keeping them under 80. There were really 8, 9, 10 points at the end of the game when the margin was big, and they hit some three-pointers. That’s nice, and I’m happy for those who scored—there were some young players there. I hope we can maintain this kind of performance.”

“Until now it felt like there was very special chemistry, and it didn’t feel like a team that had just come together,” Ramat Gan coach Shmulik Brenner concluded. “Today it very much felt like a team that had just come together and didn’t even understand how to play here—the rules, the aggressiveness. We simply looked like a team in the preseason, and that’s disappointing. But we’ll keep things in proportion—we’ve had eight good wins, and now we need to see how we connect more as a team. We finally have a fifth foreign player, so we’ll see how to integrate him as well and get ready for next week.”

Herzliya big man DJ Burns also spoke at the postgame press conference, “I think we played really well today. Our guys knocked down shots, we played good team defense, and overall we came in prepared.” On his return to Israel during the ceasefire in the war with Iran, “Right now it feels safe to me. It doesn’t feel very different from the first time I was here. The guys and the staff have done a really good job of making sure we feel safe as well, so I have no complaints about being here for the second time.”

Ramat Gan Captain Adam Ariel said, “A tough night for us—we didn’t want to show up like this. On the other hand, we’re at a stage in the season where we need to look at things realistically because we still have a mission and more games ahead. We need to take this game and learn from it, draw conclusions about how not to arrive with the right mental readiness. They beat us in energy and in all the 50-50 situations—it looked like they wanted it more than we did, and it should have been exactly the opposite. We’ll learn from this; it can happen for many reasons. We’ll need to watch the video and learn. We have a long week ahead—we need to work, also integrate another foreign player who’s joining us, and come better prepared for the decisive moments.”

Elitzur Netanya walloped Maccabi Raanana 102-77 as Eli Rabi’s team scored early and often to jump out to a huge lead right from the tipoff with Otis Frazier pacing the hosts to the 25-point win. Frazier scored 35 points and finished the game with a 50 efficiency rating, Amit Gershon scored 20 points and Cameron Oliver added 18 points in the victory while Tyrece Radford scored 18 points and Javion Hamlet put in 17 points in the loss.