Hapoel Holon fell 74-65 to Promitheas Patras in Basketball Champions League action as their Round of 16 group stage record dropped to 1-2 as they head into the international and Cup break. The purples, who were without star big man Justin Smith who tore a hamstring during the team’s league loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv over this past weekend, grabbed a slim 27-25 lead at halftime but the Greek squad came out strong in the second half to wrap up the victory.
Shawn Dawson and Netanel Artzi each scored 18 points in the loss while Anthony Cowan scored 18 points and Hunter Hale notched 16 points in the win.
“We were physical on defense but on offense we missed some shots because of their aggressiveness,” Holon bench boss Amit Sherf said. “We had the opportunity to lead my much more than 2-points after the first half because we took them out of their game and they played into our hands. We couldn’t waste that and only score 27 points and we didn’t execute well. If we would have had a 10-12 point lead after the first half we could save that advantage.”
“This was a very big win,” Patras coach Ilias Papatheodorou said. “It was a target for us to defend well against CJ Harris who is the key player. The players did a great job aghast him and kept him out of the creating and scoring. The first half was tight but we kept playing the same way in the second and we scored important and crucial shots.”
IN Israeli league play, Hapoel Beer Sheva defeated Maccabi Ramat Gan 98-96 as the southern Reds went into halftime with a 51-43 lead and held on to take their 4th win of the season. JaKeenan Gant scored 26 points and Egor Kooulechov added 16 points in the win while Kendale McCullum scored 28 points in a losing effort.
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