Maccabi Tel Aviv defeated Hapoel Beer Sheva 93-75 as five yellow-and-blue players scored in double digits to ease to the win. Roman Sorkin, Jaylen Hoard and Jasiel Rivero set the tone early for the visitors but Spencer Weisz, Cody Demps and Ron Zipper kept the hosts hanging around but down 38-31 at halftime. Tamir Blatt and Levi Randolph started scoring at will in the third quarter to open up a double digit lead while Rivero also found points to offset Justin McKoy’s late game efforts to take the victory.

Sorkin scored 15 points, Rivero added 14 points while Blatt dropped 13 points and dished out 10 assists in the win. McKoy scored 16 points as Iorio and Zipper each scored 13 points in the loss.

“I’m happy that we won the game, but I have to give Beer Sheva a lot of credit,” Maccabi Head Coach Oded Katash said. “A lot of the credit goes to their coach who made sure that his players gave it their all. They took 21 offensive rebounds and in fact grabbed more overall. I wasn’t happy about that but there were about 15 minutes that we played well on both sides of the court.”

“In general the game plan worked well and we had more shots than Maccabi,” Beer Sheva head coach Rami Hadar said. “We did an excellent job winning the battle of the boards. However, we allowed them to score too many 2-point shots which was an issue and we didn’t shoot as well as we could have, ultimately I want to win at the end of the day and in this game we didn’t.”

Levi Randolph talked about the keys to the win, “It was a great game for us and we took the win together despite the first half where we could have played better. We have to continue to build and keep the momentum. At halftime we spoke about keeping the game simple and we had been doing too much. We needed to keep the intensity on the defensive end.”

Sam Iorio spoke about playing for Rami Hadar and the game itself, “I appreciate that he has faith in me and he holds me to a standard, because of that you want to be better. I am trusting the recess as we all are, we would have liked to have seen a win but we are coming together and we are figuring it out.”

Roman Sorkin and Jaylen Hoard scored with ease for Maccabi Tel Aviv to begin the game, Spencer Weisz and Iverson Molinar countered for Hapoel Beer Sheva but points inside from Jasiel Rivero gave the yellow-and-blue a 26-18 lead after ten minutes of play. Sam Iorio and Ron Zipper both went from deep, Cody Demps and Neta Segal scored, Rivero and Jake Cohen came back with points as Maccabi took a 38-31 advantage into halftime.

Blatt and Randolph both were busy from inside and outside of the 3-point arch while Iorio, Cody Demps, Justin McKoy and Ray Spalding all scored but points from Sorkin and a pair of baskets by Rokas Jokubaitis gave Oded Katash’s squad a 67-55 lead after thirty minutes of action. Rivero scored a quick pair of baskets, Blatt went from deep, Omer Mayer put in a 3-point play, Zipper came back with points, McKoy added a bucket, David DeJulius and Mayer both went from deep to sew up the win.

Hapoel Tel Aviv defeated Kiryat Ata 94-77 in a rough and tumble battle that saw both coaches ejected by the end of the game. After a tight first half that saw Chris Smith, Liam O’Reilly and Gal Beitner pace the hosts to a surprising 44-39 lead at halftime, the reds came back with baskets by Yam Madar and Guy Palatin.

Right before the end of the third quarter Hapoel Head Coach Dimitrios Itoudis was sent to the showers with a second technical but with his team ahead 65-60 as the final frame saw Kiryat Ata bench boss Eldad Bentov ejected with his second technical foul. From there is was all red as Joe Ragland and Bruno Caboclo did as they did as they pleased to close out the game.

Ragland and Madar each scored 17 points and Caboclo scored 11 points in the win. Smith scored 18 points, O’Reilly put in 13 points and Beitner scored 12 points in the loss.