Maccabi Tel Aviv crushed past Zalgiris 83-65 in arguably their best Euroleague showing of the season as Lonnie Walker scored points a plenty to help the yellow-and-blue to the convincing victory. Maccabi came flying out of the gate as Lonnie Walker, Iffe Lundberg, Jaylen Hoard and TJ Leaf all scored in bunches while Sylvain Francisco and Nigel Williams-Goss countered for Zalgiris but the yellow-and-blue went into halftime with a huge 51-30 advantage.

Roman Sorkin, Will Rayman and Oshae Brissett scored for Oded Katash’s squad while Edgaras Ulanovas tried to cut into the Maccabi lead, however, Walker led off the final frame with 9 straight points while Hoard and Sorkin added more points to polish off the win.

Walker scored 23 points, Hoard added 16 points and Lundberg scored 10 points in the win while Francisco scored 13 points and Ignas Brazdeikis put in 10 points in the loss.

“We didn’t expect it,” Maccabi Tel Aviv Head Coach Oded Katash began. “But it was a big one and very important. Zalgiris is a great team especially at home but we controlled the game from the first half and this win was very important for our confidence. It was a really spacial win for us as the atmosphere here is amazing and either win or lose I love to come here as basketball is a culture, it’s very special. We stuck to our game plan and we have to be honest as well that Zalgiris wasn’t having their best day and they couldn’t buy a shot.”

Zalgiris Head Coach Tomas Masiulis shared his thoughts on the game, “We started the game very badly in the first half and we were playing too slowly. We tried to come back in the third quarter and while the second half was better, it wasn’t enough.”

The game MVP Lonnie Walker spoke about the win, “I’m very happy and getting the team win is most important. Our record doesn’t show it but we will climb the ladder. Our level of physicality on both sides of the court was key and we did a great job leveling our plays. We have so much talent to show and to give that the best is yet to come.”

Jaylen Hoard added, “It was a great win and it’s not easy to come here to get a win. We had a great week of practice and everyone was focused in defense and offense. A lot of times we’ve had problems closing out games in the second half closing out games when we had a big lead like this but today we took a step forward.”

Newcomer Iffe Lundberg spoke about the win and looked ahead to the Euroleague’s Israel return next week, “It was understanding that this was an important game in a tough away arena and that we have a very big important and emotional game next week at home. Me being new to the team I didn’t take this game for granted and I wanted to help, contribute in some ways to help us win this game as we now return home with some momentum in what all be a big game. This team hasn’t played back in Israel for two years and we want to go back to Tel Aviv with a note of positivity.”