Hapoel Holon wrapped up their quarterfinal series with Nes Ziona by winning decisive game 3 85-76 to send Brad Greenberg’s squad packing after a hard fought three games in which all of the players left everything they had on the court.

Stefanos Dedas’s team used a 9-man rotation to perfection as the purples received fabulous play from Willy Workman and Niv Misgav to help complement CJ Harris’s master piece who is just like a silent assassin with 25 points drawing 10 fouls and shooting a perfect 12/12 from the charity stripe. Add to the mix newcomer Michal Sokolowski and you’ve got one helluva team.

Misgav was brought in from Nahariya midway in the season and came up huge in the clutch with 8 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists in 13 minutes which included a pair of triples which set the tone for Holon to grab the win in the second half while Workman was magnificent with 15 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 steals with points coming in crunch time. Not bad at all from the supporting cast especially when Chris Johnson was struggling to find his form after leaving last game with a concussion.

Nes Ziona’s Achilles heel was the lack of depth and when Patrick Miller got into foul trouble midway through the third quarter and was then fouled out early on in the fourth, Greenberg had very few answers and had to extend his rotation to 7 players and have veteran Raviv Limonad on the court for 13+ minutes.

Did the better team win? Certainly. Did Nes Ziona give Holon a run for their money? For sure, but the cream rose to the top in that final game and we saw how Holon can play when they are in their home arena with close to 5,000 fans bouncing around all over the place and making it a very tough place for a visiting team to play.

Nes Ziona has much to be proud of as coach Greenberg explained, “Always sad when a season ends (like most) in a defeat. However, the disappointment in losing WILL NOT in any way take from the genuine sense of accomplishment our club SHOULD FEEL from a historic season, the first European title in club history, only the 3rd club in Israeli basketball history to win a Euro title, a club record 17 regular season wins, a club record 8 game league winning streak.”

Nes Ziona has a great base to build upon and management should be commended for the amazing moves they made early on in the season when they saw that the personnel they had just weren’t going to make them contenders. Quickly moves were made and the proof of the success was in the pudding. All four imports should be courted by almost every team in Israel for the upcoming year as they can all contribute to a winning cause.

The same is true for Holon who brought in quality players and depth when they needed to after Isaiah Miles left due to the security situation and Tyrus McGee was injured. Those moves are what helped Dedas take his team to the next round.

For Holon, it’s now onto the semifinals where they have another tough test in Hapoel Gilboa Galil who ended the season in third place just behind Dedas’s team. While Avishay Gordon’s squad will have had an extra couple of days of rest, Holon will have home court advantage in the series that will open up on Monday night.

“We know Gilboa very well and we will prepare mentally and they will have an advantage as they rested a few more days,” Dedas said.

As for Willy Workman who just had his first child, he was straight and to the point with what the goal is next round, “Just win baby, just win.”

Maccabi Tel Aviv will open up their semifinals series against Hapoel Eilat this evening, Sunday night at 21:00 at Yad Eliyahu. The Red Sea squad played Maccabi tough when center Josh Nebo was with the team, but the last time the two sides tipped off against each other, the Yellow & Blue were able to pull away in the fourth quarter and cruise to a 95-72 victory.

Ioannis Sfairopoulos will have a full complement of foreigners for the series as Othello Hunter is back in after Dragan Bender injured his knee last series. For Ariel Beit Halachmi, while he won’t have Josh Nebo, he will have big man Derek Ogbeide at his services who scored 7 points and added 911 rebounds in 19 minutes, however, struggled from the line going 3/8. There’s no question that the Nigerian/Canadian will give Hunter and Ante Zizic a run for their money, but Casey Prather, Joe Ragland and Markel Brown will cause Maccabi fits as well.

Scottie Wilbekin will need to be vintage Wilbekin while Angelo Caloiaro will need to continue to play his best basketball of the season right now when it counts most. Israeli Yovel Zoosman, John Dibartolomeo, Omri Casspi and TJ Cline will all need to step up as well. Maccabi can’t overlook Eilat and they surely won’t after having lost to them earlier in the season. In a quick 3 game series anything can happen and the last thing that Maccabi will want is to have to go down to Eilat in a 0-1 hole.