Maccabi Tel Aviv demolished Hapoel Galil Elyon 120-93 as the yellow-and-blue grabbed a 41-10 advantage by the end of the opening quarter and never looked back to notch the win. With the EuroLeague CEO Chus Bueno and Chief Basketball Operations Officer Diego Guillen in attendance, Yam Madar scored with ease to start the game off while Jimmy Clark hit his shots from deep as ten players ended the contest with at least 8 points.

Oded Katash’s team will now ready for Spanish Double Week with a date at Barcelona on Tuesday and a trip to Valencia slated for Thursday. Clark scored 16 points, TJ Leaf added 15 points while Will Rayman and Keaton Wallace each scored 14 points in the victory while Maurice Kemp scored 27 points in the loss.

Oded Katash talked about the win, “It was fun to start the season off and to play at home in front of our fans. I could feel them as did the players and the staff especially with the Euroleague executives in the stands so I hope that the games will come back here soon. We hit our shots off the bat and that was due to our defense that we played from the get go. We split up the minutes and gave some players some time off as well including Yam Madar and Jaylen Hoard. But we now have a very challenging double week coming up.”

Idan Avshalom spoke about the defeat, “I’m sorry that this was the first game of the season and I hope it will be different when Maccabi comes up to Galil. We will be better and we are a new team. I’m sure we can be a better team and we will show that going forward. We will work harder and improve and I’m sure we will be able to contend but it will take time.”

Keaton Wallace reflected on the victory, “We started pretty good and it was one of the better starts that we had, we had a lot of intensity and then win from the Euroleague carried over. The defense really helped out a lot and carried over into this one. We got some easy points in this game with transition play as our normal offense is a half court. The fans are amazing and we appreciate them as a 6th man and hopefully the Euroleague will come back here soon.”

Maurice Kemp talked about the loss, “They’re a great team probably one of the best in Europe. We were disappointed how we showed up in the first half and we were not ready to play, we are a young team and it’s a long season. I have to help motivate the guys to come out here and play better. This was a good lesson for us.”

Yam Madar did it all to start the game hitting his shots from the outside and inside to quickly give Maccabi Tel Aviv a 13-0 lead. Yahel Melamed tried to keep Hapoel Galil Elyon in the game but Jimmy Clark drained a quartet of 3-pointers to give the yellow-and-blue a 41-10 lead after ten minutes. Will Rayman and Amit Ebo continued the onslaught into the second quarter, TJ Leaf put down a monster slam, Keaton Wallace and Bonzie Colson both put in points, Maurice Kemp attempted to keep the game within range but Clark and Will Rayman scored from downtown to close out the half with a 70-30 lead.

Wallace started to hit his shots from beyond the arc, Nate Kingz, Rani Belaga and Kemp scored at the other end, Leaf, Clark and Wallace all responded while John Dibartolomeo hit a wild half court buzzer beater to end the third quarter with Oded Katash’s team in cruise control up 102-57 after thirty minutes of action. Dibartolomeo began the final frame the way he ended the last one with points from downtown, Sorkin and Leaf scored while Max Brooks and Kemp countered for Idan Avshalom’s team but it was too little, too late as Maccabi polished off the win.