Nes Ziona got past Hapoel Jerusalem 97-93 as Marques Bolden starred for Paul Corsaro’s team who jumped out to a 32-19 lead after the opening quarter and spurred the club to their 4th win in a row. Bolden scored 33 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, Bryce Brown added 24 points and Spencer Weisz scored 15 points in the victory while Jared Harper and Nimrod Levi each scored 21 points and Khadeen Carrington out in 17 points in the loss.

Coach Paul Corsaro praised Bolden, “In the last three games everyone can see what he can become. The main thing is the defense, in the pick-and-roll and he blocks shots. We gave up 93 points, but we defended well. He’s our defensive anchor and I want to give him credit for that.”

Bolden himself added, “I feel like it’s less about the team and more about conversations I needed to have with myself. The goal now is to make the playoffs and be the best every day. You’re only as good as your last game.”

Jerusalem bench boss Yonatan Alon said, “Nes Ziona is team with excellent players, fairly new, that’s gaining confidence and playing well together. Credit to them. I don’t think the issue was preparation, but rather two main things: the first quarter, where we let them play, we weren’t aggressive, we didn’t commit fouls, they hit some big shots and we just flowed with it instead of stopping it. The second thing was that every time we got close, even though we made the right plays and did good things during the game today, they got another offensive rebound, another cut and another defensive mistake by us.”

Carrington also commented, “Tough game. They made a lot of shots today. It was a great game by them. We played hard, made mistakes that cost us, but it was a very good game from both teams. We were missing a few things, we needed one or two more stops to finish this game after coming back. It’s always tough to play here; it’s a small arena, the rims are tough. We’re used to playing in bigger arenas. No excuses, but the little things matter. It’s always hard to play here. We need to start games better. It’s on us on the court, me, Jared and the others, we need to stop runs like that. We can’t let teams start against us that way.”

Maccabi Raanana slipped by Maccabi Ramat Gan 89-87 as Matt Coleman iced the game from the line as time wound down in his debut with the club to help them to the win. Coleman scored 19 points while Lennard Freeman and Tyrece Radford each scored 17 points in the victory. Adam Ariel scored 16 points, Terrel Brown added 15 points and DeAndre Pinckney put in 12 points in the loss.

Maccabi Rishon Le’Zion downed Hapoel Galil Elyon 79-75 as DJ Burns and Qua Grant scored critical points down the stretch to tale the victory. Burns scored 21 points, Amin Stevens added 15 points and Grant put in 11 points in the win while Shachar Amir scored 27 points in the defeat.