Maccabi Tel Aviv cruised past Hapoel Holon 89-61 as Jaylen Hoard starred once again for the yellow-and-blue who swept the semifinals 3-0 and will now tip-off against Hapoel Tel Aviv for the league championship in a best-of-five Derby finals series which will get underway on Tuesday night back at Yad Eliyahu.
Oded Katash’s squad grabbed an early lead with Roman Sorkin, Jimmy Clark who returned from injury and Hoard leading the way as Jordan Wright and Adama Sanogo tried to keep the game close at the half with Maccabi up 42-35. However, the thrid quarter was an entirely different story as Zach Hankins, Oshae Brissett along with Will Rayman, Hoard and Clark continued to score at will to run away with the 28-point victory.
Hoard scored 18 points, Clark and Hankins added 14 points as Sorkin scored 13 points in the win while Jordan Wright scored 14 points and Sanogo put in 12 points in the loss.
Maccabi Head Coach Oded Katash spoke about the victory and looked ahead to the Derby finals, “I’m happy and proud as to how we advanced to the final. We were able to continue to improve form game to game but we did have issues and challenges with injuries but I’m not going to take anything for granted especially after the past week’s issue with Iran, the guys deserve a lot of credit.
“We were able to control the rebound and kept up our intensity which was able to help us win the games and can bring us titles. We do have a big headache because we have some injuries including at our power forward position where we won’t have Gur Lavy and TJ Leaf while Tamir Blatt will only be available at some point in the series.”
Holon Head Coach Predrag Krunic reflected on the defeat, “We came to play and win the game with a solid first half but Maccabi played really well in in the second half on both sides of the floor and that made us very tough. Good luck to Maccabi in the final, but our guys did the best that they could and ultimately we advanced to play in the Basketball Champions League. It’s important that we understand that we had a tough time with the players including injuries to point guards but the summer time will be a chance to make some decisions and make our team strong to be competitive in the Israeli league and in Europe. We we saw a very good mentality with our players and that translated to have the fans behind us.”
Jimmy Clark who returned from injury spoke about his return and the upcoming finals, “It feels great especially to be with this group of guys and I’m happy they were able to get me back out there. I stayed prepared and engaged when I was out, physically I have to be more in game shape but we believe it will be a good matchup. I feel when we come out and play together we will have advantage in size. We played against them four times and they may have beat us the majority this season but all of those losses don’t matter, we are looking forward to it.”
Jordan Wright looked back at the game and the past couple of months, “Not much to say we came back out in the second half flat, but we’ve come together over the past two months, we battled and we left it all on the floor. I’ve loved my time here and I’ve loved playing for coach and I’d like to come back if possible. My season was up and down but I found my niche. Maccabi is a great club if we would have been together the whole year the games may have been closer, coach really got the guys together and we won some big games as we wanted to get the BCL spot. It speaks volumes about the staff and professionalism here.”
John Dibartolomeo for a deuce, Will Rayman from deep and Roman Sorkin in the paint for Maccabi Tel Aviv off and running, while Oshae Brisett went from downtown and Jaylen Hoard dunked before Hapoel Holon scored their first field goal via Darin Green Jr. as Jordan Wright and Yair Kravits also scored but Zach Hankins gave the hosts a 20-11 lead after ten minutes of play.
Wright went from the outside and pair from the inside to begin the second quarter, but Hoard dunked, Iffe Lundberg and Sorkin scored, Kravits and Green came back from downtown, Hoard and Sorkin put down points in the paint, Adama Sanogo scored a trio of baskets, Jimmy Clark and Wright traded triples as Oded Katash’s team took a 42-35 lead into halftime.
Netanel Artzi dialled up long distance to start off the third quarter, Hoard and Rayman both scored while Sorkin put in a 3-point play, Hankins, Hoard and Clark kept pouring in the points, Idan Zalmanson tried to keep Predrag Krunic’s team relevant but more points from Clark, Brissett and Rayman bumped the Maccabi lead up to 67-44 after thirty minutes of action. Rayman, Clark Hankins and Lundberg proved to be unstoppable in the final frame as youngsters Oren Sahar and Tamir Gold also scored to help the yellow-and-blue to the win.
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