{"id":155198,"date":"2025-09-10T21:00:52","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T21:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/?p=155198"},"modified":"2025-09-12T08:58:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T08:58:02","slug":"winston-stars-as-hapoel-jerusalem-downs-maccabi-rishon-lezion-in-winner-cup-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/en\/winston-stars-as-hapoel-jerusalem-downs-maccabi-rishon-lezion-in-winner-cup-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Winston stars as Hapoel Jerusalem downs Maccabi Rishon Le’Zion in Winner Cup play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hapoel Jerusalem defeated Maccabi Rishon Le\u2019Zion 73-69 as the reds saw fine play from Justin Smith and Cassius Winston in Jared Harper\u2019s stead to stymie DJ Burns and Qua Grant to take the win in the capital city. Yonatan Alon\u2019s 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.
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DJ Burns – Photo credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>
\nBurns scored with flair for Maccabi Rishon Le\u2019Zion 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.
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Cassius Winston – Photo credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>
\nWinston 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.
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Yonatan Alon- Photo credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>
\n\u201cWe are missing four regulars,\u201d Jerusalem bench boss Yonatan Alon began. \u201cBut 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI know the guys and we are disappointed to lose as we came here to win,\u201d Rishon Head Coach Sharon Drucker began. \u201cThere 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.\u201d
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Jared Hjarper amd Cassius Winston – Photo credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>
\nCassius Winston spoke about the game as well as his thoughts about his former teammate Deni Avdija playing at the Eurobasket, \u201cThey were a tough team scrappy and aggressive. I don\u2019t think we handled the pressure as well as we should have, but we will continue to get better and get better as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guard also shared his thoughts about finally getting a chance to play in front of the fans at the Arena, \u201cI\u2019m 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.\u201d
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Cassius Winston – Photo credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>
\nWinston played with Deni Avdija with Washington spoke about his former teammate who just played at the Eurobasket, \u201cI caught a few games and he had a really good Eurobasket showing and you can see how much better he has gotten, how he\u2019s developing and growing his game over time. I am just happy to see him out there.\u201d
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Josh Freund – Photo credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>
\nJosh Freund talked about the game from his point of view, \u201cWe 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.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hapoel Jerusalem defeated Maccabi Rishon Le\u2019Zion 73-69 as the reds saw fine play from Justin Smith and Cassius Winston in Jared Harper\u2019s stead to stymie DJ Burns and Qua Grant to take the win in the capital city. Yonatan Alon\u2019s squad was shorthanded with Harper out of action along with a trio of players who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":155229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[96],"class_list":["post-155198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-land-hoops","tag-hapoel-jerusalem","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nWinston stars as Hapoel Jerusalem downs Maccabi Rishon Le'Zion in Winner Cup play - Sports Rabbi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/en\/winston-stars-as-hapoel-jerusalem-downs-maccabi-rishon-lezion-in-winner-cup-play\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Winston stars as Hapoel Jerusalem downs Maccabi Rishon Le'Zion in Winner Cup play - Sports Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hapoel Jerusalem defeated Maccabi Rishon Le\u2019Zion 73-69 as the reds saw fine play from Justin Smith and Cassius Winston in Jared Harper\u2019s stead to stymie DJ Burns and Qua Grant to take the win in the capital city. 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