Holon drops AEK to even up BCL Road of 16 record at 1-1

Jan 30, 2024 | Holyland Hoops

Hapoel Holon got by AEK 79-68 in Hungary to even up their record to 1-1 in the Basketball Champions League Round of 16 group stage. Next up for Head Coach Amit Sherf’s team is another home away from home game against Promitheas Patras in Szombathely back at the Savaria Arena.

Netanel Artzi with a quartet of triples along with strong play from CJ Harris and Drew Crawford scored early for Hapoel Holon while Chasson Randle and Jordan McRae responded but the purples took a 46-38 lead at halftime. Justin Smith started to score in bunches while Harris added points for Amit Sherf’s team to stay in front as Brandon Knight and Justin Tillman along with Randle tried to stay close but the purples closed out the victory.

Justin Smith – Photo credit: BCL


Harris led the way with 19 points, Smith added 17 points and Artzi scored 16 points in the win. Randle scored 22 points, Knight chipped in with 12 points and Tillman scored 10 points in the loss.

Amit Sherf – Photo credit: BCL


“I am proud of the players,” Sherf said after the game. “Many people have said that we are not at the level, but we were not down and now thaw won AEK we are not too high. We have a game against one of the best team’s in Europe of Saturday in Maccabi Tel Aviv and next week we play Promitheas. We have a lot of veterans and if we stay together everyone reduces their ego and plays for the team. We had a bad loss last week and we have to keep fighting.”

“Holon deserved to win the game,” Ilias Zouros the AEK head coach said. “We were confused with the zone defense we had to face and we got sticks dn hesitated a lot. We don’t have a lot of time to work but I am sure that we will compete in our games. We missed crucial rebounds and allowed them to shoot some 3’s. But we have to go on and fight every game and every second because AEK is a big team.”

CJ Harris – Photo credit: BCL


CJ Harris spoke about the win form his point of view, “AEK is a very talented and physical team and I think we did a good job bringing physicality and unselfishness to both our offense and defense and that is one of the reasons why we won the game, being physical and sharing the ball.”

Sign up for our newsletter

0 Comments

You may also like…

Newsletter

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates. 

You have Successfully Subscribed!