Hapoel Jerusalem defeated Hapel HaEmek 77-75 in a tight battle up at Gan Ner ahead of their quarterfinal matchup that begins back in the capital city on Sunday night in a best-of-3 series. The hosts took a 46-34 lead into halftime as Kyler Edwards, Nick Ogenda and Cameron henry paced Sharon Avrahami’s team, but Jared Harper began to mount the comeback in the third quarter while Khadeen Carrington together with Nimrod Levi and Xavier Sneed as Harper scored the key free throws to close out the victory. Harper scored 20 points, Justin Smith added 16 points and Carrington scored 15 points in the win while Edwards and Ogenda each scored 13 points in the loss.

Jerusalem bench boss Yonatan Alon said after the game, “I hope next week will look more like the second half and not the first half. That’s the way to win games. A lot of credit to Hapoel HaEmek, they played excellently, they’re a good and well-coached team. It was a battle. What won us the game was that we stopped complaining, started defending and playing physically and we made a small offensive adjustment that gave us better spacing. In games like these, you don’t go on huge runs, you chip away and chip away and chip away, investing heavily in the third quarter to put yourself in position to win in the fourth. The key is to be consistent.”

Speaking about the regular season, Yonatan Alon added, “What a basketball team like ours went through this year is not normal. You can’t compare it to anything, you can’t judge it. There are things I’m happier with and things I’m less happy with. It’s great that expectations are high for us, but at least from what we experienced as Hapoel Jerusalem and the way I can approach the players and try to push them to their limits, this season feels like four seasons in one. Our wins in the Winner Cup feel like they happened five years ago. I don’t want to sum everything up yet, but it’s been a very big challenge.”

HaEmek Head Coach Sharon Avrahami looked back at the loss and ahead to the postseason, “What ultimately made the difference against us were the turnovers in the second half and the offensive rebounds. As for the playoffs, first of all, I hope we’ll arrive as healthy as possible, that’s the foundation, because they’re already a very, very deep team. I personally always believe in my teams. We’ll come to play the same way we did all year. First, I need to see that I have the full roster and then we’ll think about surprises. But there are always adjustments in the playoffs, we’ll watch this game and make adjustments.”

Jared Harper said after the win, “First of all, I want to send my condolences to the family of Raz Adam. This is a very difficult loss. My shoulder is okay, this is playoff basketball. We knew what kind of opponent we were facing and we know they’re a good, tough team that we’ll have to battle against. Everything we went through this season was for the playoffs. Getting Isaiah (Mobley) back is good for our team and it sends a message. We’ll have to fight. They fought harder than us in the first half.”

Elitzur Netanya downed Hapoel Beer Sheva 83-79 as Javante McCoy starred in the win that saw the diamond city squad comeback from an 11-point deficit at halftime. McCoy scored 35 points and Amit Gershon added 16 points in the victory while LJ Figueroa scored 22 points and Marquis Barnett put in 17 points in the loss.

Maccabi Ramat Gan got by Hapoel Holon 110-104 in a back-and-forth affair as each team had five players finish in double digits. Holon will now ready for the playoffs and will play Bnei Herzliya while Ramat Gan’s season has come to an end as head coach Shmulik Brenner stepped down after six seasons at the helm of the club. Adam Ariel led the way with 28 points and DeAndre Pinckney scored 22 points in the win while Darin Green scored 19 points and Adama Sanogo scored 15 points in the loss.

Hapoel Galil Elyon defeated Kiryat Ata 113-108 in double overtime as Yuval Sznaiderman took over in the second extra session with 13 points including 11 in a row to close out the win for the Kfar Blum based team that saw Israeli Raz Adam pass away recently in a car accident. Newcomer Ish El-Amin scored 29 points and Sznaiderman added 28 points in the victory while Rob Edwards scored 31 points and Tomer Asayag put in 16 points in the defeat.