Maccabi Tel Aviv slipped by Red Star Belgrade 83-82 as Jimmy Clark once again starred for the yellow-and-blue as they swept the double week to improve their Euroleague record to 12-15, good for 14th place. With 28 lead changes in the game held in Serbia, Oded Katash’s squad took a 49-40 lead into halftime as Clark paced Maccabi with 15 first half points matching Jordan Nwora’s performance for the hosts.

However, Sasa Obradovic’s team went on an 11-2 run in the third quarter as Nwora and Chima Moneke helped Red Star to a 67-65 advantage after thirty minutes of action. But a 13-2 Maccabi run thanks to Jaylen Hoard, Oshae Brissett, Roman Sorkin, Iffe Lundberg and Clark put the visitors in the drivers seat as they withstood a late 6-0 Red Star run of their own as Nwora came up short on a potential game winner to hand Katash’s crew the hard earned victory.

Clark scored 22 points while Sorkin and Hoard added 15 points each in the win as Nwora scored 22 points, Jared Butler put in 16 points and Moneke scored 14 points in the defeat.

“I like the way we played,” Katash said following the game. “In the first half we controlled the rebounds, but in the second we knew they would come out aggressively and we were struggling. We managed to stay calm and it wasn’t pretty in the end, but we can see the mental improvement of the team as we kept losing games like this earlier this season. I am very proud of the team. This is a very special win for us.”

“We lost a bit of organization in the final quarter,” Obradovic explained. “We’ve shown great character down the road but we can’t complain; we just have to be smarter in some situations. We failed to capitalize on good defense in the second half and we’re now carrying the weight of expectation as favorites after working our way up the ladder.“

The game MVP Jimmy Clark spoke about the victory, “It was very tough playing in an atmosphere like this with the fans tuned in throughout the 40 minutes. We came here with just one thing on our minds: to try to be aggressive and get the win.”

Jaylen Hoard added, “It was amazing. Great atmosphere here obviously, and we really wanted to come away with a win to finish off a great double week, We played hard, good defense and stayed together on offense. We had a lot of close games and got more confident as the season progressed, I feel we’re getting better as a team.”