Hapoel Jerusalem defeated Maccabi Rishon Le’Zion 73-69 as the reds saw fine play from Justin Smith and Cassius Winston in Jared Harper’s stead to stymie DJ Burns and Qua Grant to take the win in the capital city. Yonatan Alon’s squad was shorthanded with Harper out of action along with a trio of players who had just represented Israel at the 2025 Eurobasket not being available, but no matter, the hosts still took teh hard earned victory against a more than game Rishon.

Burns scored with flair for Maccabi Rishon Le’Zion to open the game while Winston answered with points a plenty for Hapoel Jerusalem in the second quarter as the reds took a slim 43-42 lead into halftime. Grant had the hot hand for the visitors in the third as Smith countered to bump the Jerusalem advantage up to 55-50 after thirty minutes. Burns and JJ Kaplan tried to keep Rishon hanging around in the final frame but Roi Huber from deep and points from Anthony Lamb closed out the win for the hosts.

Winston scored 19 points, Smith added 16 points and Huber scored 10 points in the win while Burns scored 23 points, Grant put in 15 points and Kaplan scored 10 points in the loss.

“We are missing four regulars,” Jerusalem bench boss Yonatan Alon began. “But we also want to make sure we put a mark on our identity. This is the first time that many players were here to play and had a chance to get to know the fans. It takes time for players to really come together and you saw that it takes a long time for that to happen, we have 12 players that will play and they are intelligent to understand how to really play for the club. We chose players who can really look at the big picture.”

“I know the guys and we are disappointed to lose as we came here to win,” Rishon Head Coach Sharon Drucker began. “There were a few things that we have to work on but we really came and played our game with a strong performance. The guys are working like animals to get ready and prepare for the season.”

Cassius Winston spoke about the game as well as his thoughts about his former teammate Deni Avdija playing at the Eurobasket, “They were a tough team scrappy and aggressive. I don’t think we handled the pressure as well as we should have, but we will continue to get better and get better as a team.”

The guard also shared his thoughts about finally getting a chance to play in front of the fans at the Arena, “I’m excited to get some real live game reps and get to see what we have been working on. It was an opportunity to go out there and knowing that we are going to be even better when we get all of our guys back, it should be really exciting as we have a real good group here and getting all this pieces together.”

Winston played with Deni Avdija with Washington spoke about his former teammate who just played at the Eurobasket, “I caught a few games and he had a really good Eurobasket showing and you can see how much better he has gotten, how he’s developing and growing his game over time. I am just happy to see him out there.”

Josh Freund talked about the game from his point of view, “We still need to clean up some things as always we want to win and as long as we take steps and improve we will put ourselves in a good position.”