Hapoel Jerusalem dominated Maccabi Tel Aviv to take the first Israeli Classico of the season 101-84 as Jared Harper continued his dream season with a tremendous 30-point performance to help the Reds to the victory.

Yonatan Alon’s team came flying out of the gate as big man Gaby Chachashvili, Yovel Zoosman and Jared Harper spurred the hosts to a 29-18 lead after the opening quarter of play. David DeJulius, Levi Randolph and Roman Sorkin tried to narrow the gap for Oded Katash’s team but were only able to cut down the lead to 46-38 by halftime. Veteran forward Chris Johnson turned back the clock in the third quarter and helped Jerusalem go up by 18-points, 78-60 after thirty minutes of action while Harper poured in points a plenty over the final frame to close out the win.

Harper scored 30 points, Zoosman added 17 points and Johnson chipped in with 15 points in the win. Randolph scored 22 points as DeJulius and Sorkin scored 14 points in the loss.

“When you have the best crowd in the country, this is what happens, it’s very simple,” Jerusalem Head Coach Yonatan Alon said. “We are athletes and we all want to succeed. Obviously the players come into these types of games even more prepared. I am not one who likes to exaggerate, I didn’t exaggerate when we lost to Hamburg, which was a very painful loss and I won’t here with this win. We need to do our job. At this stage of the season we need to win and continue to improve in all facets of the game.”

“Our game play was awful in every way, shape and form,” Maccabi Tel Aviv Head Coach Oded Katash said. “Whether it was offensively or defensively we were not good. In previous games where we played well, in this one we weren’t even able to do much of anything. You have to give credit to Jerusalem, they were much more aggressive, the way the game started is how it ended. We’re going though a difficult time and we need to pull ourselves together.”

Jerusalem captain Yovel Zoosman reflected on the win, “I try to be as talkative as possible on and off the court, to do what I can to help the team. That’s part of my role as captain and as a player. All of us have really tried to go well above and beyond what we can do and I’m just trying to do my job. I believe that a victory in the Classico is not just another victory.We’re happy, we’ll be happy today and we’ll celebrate, but tomorrow is a new day.”

David DeJulius spoke about the loss, “Fatigue doesn’t matter and we had to come out with a sense of urgency for 40 minutes each and every day, there are no excuses. We got to figure it out and stick together just like Maccabi has always been about as a ball club.”

Maccabi Ramat Gan clipped Hapoel Holon 90-88 in a battle of Israel’s Basketball Champions League representatives. Shmulik Brenner’s team jumped all over Guy Goodes’s purples in the opening frame and never looked back as Amin Stevens and Kendale McCullum out dueled Elijah Mitrou-Long and Mike Davis Jr. to collect the win.

Stevens scored 27 points, McCullum added 23 points and Isaiah Miles chipped in with 15 points in the win. Mitrou-Long scored 25 points, Davis Jr. put in 21 points and Idan Zalmanson scored 13 points in the loss.

Hapoel Beer Sheva mounted a fourth quarter comeback on the road led by Iverson Molinar to top Hapoel Gilboa Galil 83-78 at Gan Ner. The hosts controlled the pace of play throughout the first three quarters as Ish El-Amin and Gur Lavie led Sharon Avrahami’s team but Molinar along with Spencer Weisz and Ron Zipper going 9/9 from the free throw line helped Rami Hadar’s team to the victory. Molinar scored 27 points, Weisz added 13 points while Zipper, Paul Scruggs and Ray Spalding all had 9 points in the win. El-Amin scored 23 points and Lavi put in 17 points in the win.