Jerusalem knocks off Nes Ziona with sights set on 2nd place

May 3, 2023 | Holyland Hoops


Hapoel Jerusalem downed Nes Ziona 82-75 to keep pressure on Hapoel Tel Aviv in second place. The reds controlled the first half of the game and took a 46-37 lead into halftime as they held serve over the final twenty minutes of play to chalk up the win. Next up for Aleksandar Dzikic’s team is a date with Maccabi Tel Aviv on Sunday night in the capital city.

Speedy Smith who had been out the last couple of games returned to score 16 points, Itay Segev added 13 points and Siim Sander-Vene scored 11 points in the victory. DJ Cooper paced the hosts with 21 points and Tyler Bey scored 13 points in the loss.

“If you believe that playing Nes Ziona is going to be easy then you don’t know a lot about basketball,” Jerusalem coach Aleksandar Dzikic began. “They came out to play and we had our own internal interests in the game by resting Zach Hankins and Levi Randolph and I was willing to pay the price.”

Aleksandar Dzikic – Photo Credit: Yehuda Halickman


“It was the little things that Hapoel were able to punish us on,” Nes Ziona coach Elad Hasin said. But I am happy as to the way we played in this game and while I would have liked to have won, I am still happy with how we battled which is something that we can take going forward.”

Hapoel captain Itay Segev spoke about the game, “This was an important win, we didn’t play as well as we wanted to and Nes Ziona is a good team. We hav-e to still improve. I came in focused and I wanted to show what I could do in this game.”

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