Maccabi Tel Aviv cruised past Maccabi Raanana 106-89 as Gur Lavi had his best game for the yellow-and-blue who broke the open the matchup in the third quarter to take the win. After a fairly close first half that saw Raanana guard Joe Ragland do as he pleased, Lavi along with Ronan Sorkin started to build up their advantage going up by 20-poimts in the second half as they notched the win. Lavi scored 23 points, Roman Sorkin added 18 points and Jaylen Haord scored 13 points in the victory while Ragland scored 24 points and Joaquin Szuchman put in 22 points in the loss.

“Neither team really defended in the first half,” Oded Katash said “Raanana had some mitigating circumstances and were without a number of key players whereas we had fewer. We were sluggish as it’s not easy to get players to a high level of intensity, but at halftime we talked about holding them to 35 points, and that’s more or less what we did. I’m satisfied, happy and looking ahead to Thursday (the EuroLeague game at Yad Eliyahu against Bayern Munich).”

Raanana Head Coach Shay Segalovich said, “We wanted and hoped to play more aggressively on the defensive end. Offensively, we played well for most of the game. Against a team at Maccabi Tel Aviv’s level, you need more stops to win. We needed to be less soft in the paint. With shooting percentages like that, you can’t expect to beat them.”

The game MVP Gur Lavi also spoke about the contest, “The first half was tough, we gave up more than fifty points. We made adjustments in the second half and now, after the win, the most important thing is to hold on to first place. This is my first year with Maccabi and every game is important for me to prove myself so they’ll trust me more. I hope this game did that and that the trust in me will grow.”

Hapoel Galil Elyon defeated Elitzur Netanya 79-74 as Raz Adam starred for Idan Avshalom’s club as the bench boss was able to top his former team. The diamond city squad started out on fire and grabbed a 24-12 lead after the opening quarter, but the Galilee side came storming back to cut the gap to just a lone point by halftime. By the end of the third quarter were able to go up by 7-points thanks to Adam’s fine play to help notch the win. Adam scored 22 points, DJ Kennedy put in 18 points and Zahir Porter scored 16 points in the victory while Kahliel Spear scored 19 points and Otis Frazier added 16 points in the loss.