Hapoel Jerusalem eased past Kiryat Ata 89-66 as Justin Smith, Gaby Chachashvili and Jared Harper did the damage for the reds to move their record to 2-1 early on in the Israeli league season. In a game that took place at the Malha Arena, the club’s old home facility due to the Hezbollah attacks up north which forced a switch of home dates and the PAIS Arena not being available due to Sukkot holiday events, Yonatan Alon’s squad did as they pleased with Justin Smith ruling the paint early and often while Chachashvili and Harper were unstoppable all contest long to take the win.

Justin Smith scored 22 points, Harper added 14 points, Chachjashvili put in 12 points in the victory while Chavaughn Lewis scored 16 points, Raz Adam chipped in with 12 points ad JJ Kaplan scored 10 points in the loss.

“I am happy with the win as I am satisfied with any victory,” Hapoel Jerusalem head coach Yonatan Alon said. “I really liked playing at Malha and I personally really wanted it to happen a number of times already including in the Winner Cup. I think we can make an event of the games here especially when some like this one would have been in the large arena where it may seem a bit much. Play some games here as it brings a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.”

“First of all we reacted well to the mental aspects of this game,” Kiryat Ata coach Eldad Bentov began. It was not easy for us as we were on the road for 4 hours and delisted the tough travel we had the correct attitude and we came to fight and we gave it our all but it was not enough. We need to improve a lot of things, especially on offense. The players need to know how to make the adjustments and we were punished on the other end.”

The MVP of the game Justin Smith spoke about his team’s win, “I think that we came out with good energy, the crowd really helped us get into a rhythm but as expected teams aren’t just going to let you beat them by 50 points. So we knew they were going to hit us back and I think that we were able to handle their punch back and we were able to get out the game with the win.”

Raz Adam spoke about the game that was, “We played one of the best defensive teams in Europe and we knew we would have a very difficult game. There’s not much to say, we weren’t there almost the entire game and we will have to learn from this and improve.”

Gaby Chachashvili for Hapoel Jerusalem and JJ Kaplan for Kiryat Ata traded corner 3-balls to begin the game, Chavaughn Lewis added points for the visitors but Austin Wiley and Justin Smith scored in bunches to give the hosts a 24-15 lead after ten minutes of play. Justin Smith continued to score at will in the paint, Lewis countered for Eldad Bentov’s team while newcomer Chris Smith put down a nasty dunk but so did Smith while Noam Dovrat nailed a triple as the half came to an end to give Yonatan Alon’s squad a 40-27 advantage.

Chachashvili and Wiley scored on the inside, Yovel Zoosman scored on the outside, Justin Smith kept finding points while Or Cornelius hit a triple as the buzzer sounded to end the 3rd quarter and give Hapoel a 63-43 lead after thirty minutes of action. Yuval Sznajderman and Speedy Smith traded triples to begin the fourth quarter, Akia Pruitt, Kaplan and Lewis tried to cut down the lead, Jared Harper came back with points from deep, the line and midrange to close out the contest.