Hapoel Holon downed Elitzur Netanya 86-77 as Jordan McRae put in a masterful performance to help the purples to the win. Danny Franco’s squad jumped out to a 20-points 56-36 halftime lead as McRae, Netanel Artzi and Derrick Walton Jr. all contributed, but Shaq Buchanan spurred on a second half comeback for the visitors and tie the game up at 75-75, however, McRae scored a number of key buckets down the stretch to give Holon the lead for good and notch the win.

Semaj Christon and Shaq Buchanan scored for Netanya early on, Jordan McRae, Idan Zalmanson and Netanel Artzi responded for Holon to give the purples a 25-17 lead after ten minutes of play. Or Cornelius and Yair Kravits traded baskets to begin the second quarter, Derrick Walton Jr. scored as well while McRae hit a jumper, then put the hammer down and drained a triple to give Holon a 56-36 advantage at halftime.

Xavier Munford and Lior Carreira found points to start off the third quarter, Walton Jr. scored as well while Buchanan and Kahliel Spear tried to keep Idan Avshalom’s team in the game and pulled to within 73-66 midway in the fourth quarter. Carreira scored inside, Buchanan answered with points a plenty to tie the game up at 75-75, McRae went from deep and nailed a turn around jumper while Munford knocked down a corner 3-ball to close out the game.

McRae scored 20 points, Zalmanson added 13 points while Carreira put in 11 points in the win. Buchanan scored 25 points and Christon scored 15 points in the loss.

Hapoel Holon Head Coach Danny Franco discussed the victory, “It was very hard to muster energy for this game today, but that’s natural. You come off a big game against Hapoel Jerusalem and then the game against Cholet. As a coach, I took a few of the guys this morning and explained to them that the league isn’t only about Jerusalem and the flashy teams. It’s a 9 p.m. game, the arena won’t be full, that’s part of our job as professionals.”

Netanya Head Coach Idan Avshalom commented about the contest, “Two days ago, when I told the players that we’re switching from daylight saving time to standard time, apparently I didn’t do it well enough, we woke up an hour late. Holon is an excellent team; you can’t play just 12–13 minutes against them. I’m proud of my players, it’s not easy to play in this arena.

Lior Carreira talked about the victory, “First of all, we won and I’m really happy that we’re continuing this positive momentum. We made it hard for ourselves at the end, it didn’t need to be that way but there are a lot of good things to take from this. As I said, we stopped focusing on the small details, we gave them confidence, and we didn’t know how to put our foot down and stop it. We’re all very experienced players.”

Shaq Buchanan spoke about the game, “It was a tough one to start off. I just like the fighting we had at the end but we need to come out for 4 quarters and we’ll be ok. Just come out and stick to the game plan. Great coach, he has big game plans, we just need to go out as a team and that all the guys would buy into it.”

Maccabi Rishon Le’Zion surprised Hapoel Beer Sheva 75-67 as Amin Stevens with 28 points and Khalil Ahmad with 20 points out-duelled CJ Elleby who scored 14 points for the Southern Reds.