There are four teams remaining in the battle for the Israel League Championship for the 2024/25 season, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv, Hapoel Jerusalem and Hapoel Holon. The semifinals will be played in a best-of-three format and begin on Friday, when Hapoel Tel Aviv will host Hapoel Jerusalem in the first game of the series while three days later, on Monday, the Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Holon will begin.

As part of the outstanding players ceremony for the 2024/25 season a press conference was also held ahead of the semifinal series, with each of the four teams represented by its captain and coach.

Bar Timor, captain of Hapoel Tel Aviv, opened by saying, “We are very excited to have the opportunity to win the championship. We achieved an incredible accomplishment in winning the EuroCup, but we have to put that behind us now as we are already focused on the current goal of winning the title.”

Reds coach Dimitrios Itoudis continued in the same vein, “We are playing in the semifinals against a great and well-coached team and it will be a very interesting series. We made a lot of people happy by winning the EuroCup including ourselves, but we are putting that aside. It is time to get back to reality.”

Yonatan Alon, coach of Hapoel Jerusalem, commented on the fact that his team competed well in the regular season against the other contenders for the crown and said, “Playoffs and the regular season are a totally different story, but it did give us a sense of what we can do by defeating strong opponents and we are proud to be here. We’ve been through a lot this season, a lot of injuries, there were big mental and physiological challenges, but none of that is concerns us now – only one thing is of interest to us.”

About the opponent in the semi-final, which Jerusalem defeated in their last meeting in the regular season, Alon said, “The Hapoel Tel Aviv we played 5 months ago and the Hapoel Tel Aviv of now are different teams. In any case, we believe in ourselves and what is most important to me is how we play.”

The Jerusalem captain, Yovel Zoosman, added, “We have a quality team, we will compete against a quality team and this will be an aggressive series and I hope it will be played at a high level. Whoever is more focused on the little things will have the upper hand. As Yonatan said, the Hapoel Tel Aviv of now is a different team from the one we played 5 months ago and they have a lot of confidence after winning the EuroCup.”

Following the Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem portion of the press conference, the Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Holon coaches and captains took to the stage. Oded Katash, the reining champion’s coach, said: “First of all, we can’t take it for granted that we are playing basketball at this time and that there are hostages being held that we need to them bring home. This was a season that went to the extreme in terms of what was experienced and difficulty, even compared to last season. Our ability to end the campaign with a trophy and with home court advantage in the league is not a given and we hope that we will also be in the final.”

Katash also specifically referred to Iftach Ziv, one of the opponent’s most prominent players, and said, “I am happy for Iftach. He is a player with good qualities and every time he is with Guy (Kaplan) good things happen for him. He has proven in the past and he has proven again this year in the playoffs that he is definitely a player who can make a difference. He is one of the players we will have to think about how we stop.”

Holon reached the semifinal series after playing a five game thriller of a quarterfinals against Bnei Herzliya. Guy Kaplan addressed the issue and emphasized, “At this stage of the season there is no fatigue and motivation comes first. We need to maintain the momentum we have created for ourselves. It’s obvious that Maccabi Tel Aviv is the favorite in this series. We need to be consistent along the way, remain humble and focused.”

Maccabi Tel Aviv captain John DiBartolomeo said, “We have the home court advantage, we worked hard to achieve it and we want to continue towards the final. It was a very challenging season, the lack of practice and the travel, so it was difficult to generate momentum. We did not have the success we wanted in the Euroleague, but we also learn from these things. Holon has great players, Iftach Ziv, DJ Cooper and others and we will need a team effort to stop them.”

Hapoel Holon captain Netanel Artzi is doubtful to play in the semifinal series after missing game 5 in the series against Herzliya, “I am making an effort to play in the semifinal. I always dreamed of reaching these moments, these are the special ones and this was a special season in general. Against Maccabi Tel Aviv we need to remain ourselves, be united and believe. We have an excellent professional staff that will give us everything we need. If I can’t play, I will give my energy from the bench. I believe in my teammates.”

The second part of the evening was dedicated to the awards ceremony as Gur Lavy was the big winner of the evening capturing a trio of prizes. The Hapoel Gilboa Galil forward took home the Israeli Player of the Season, Most Improved Player and one of the Starting 5 spots in what was one of the most impressive showings of the campaign.

Hapoel Jerusalem’s Jared Harper was named Most Valuable Player along with taking one of the Starting 5 places while his teammate Yovel Zoosman earned the Defensive Player of the Season award and his new backcourt mate Roi Huber snatched the 6th Man of the Season trophy after having spent the majority of the campaign with Maccabi Ramat Gan.

Yuval Levin, the Kiryat Ata forward was named the Discovery of the Season while Kendale McCullum, Roman Sorkin and Johnathan Motley grabbed the other three places in the Starting 5.

Finally, Hapoel Tel Aviv Head Coach Dimitrios Itoudis won the Coach of the Season award after having the best record in Israeli league play.