By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Tyler Dorsey reached career-high numbers to pace Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv to a hard-fought 86-84 victory against Real Madrid, in Round 21 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
Dorsey scored a new career-high of 30 points while finished the game with 4 rebounds and 3 assists for an also new personal-best PIR of 36 and helped the Israeli side take revenge for their Round 9 meeting in Madrid (79-63). “I’m never satisfied with what I do and we have to continue to keep fighting and try to climb back up into the playoffs. There’s a long couple of months left before then, so we’ve just got to continue and keep fighting defensively”, he said. Maccabi grabbed its second win in a row and improved to a 10-11 record in the standings.
The hosts stood strong in a nerve-wracking finale, as Walter Tavares (15 points) evened the score at 80 points with just 50 seconds remaining in the game. Dorsey got the job done with a three-point play to give Maccabi a slight advantage that pushed them to the final victory, even though Othello Hunter and Scottie Wilbekin missed crucial free throws in the final seconds.
“We fought hard against a very good team with great quality and great experience, with players that have played a lot of years together with the same coach, the same philosophy. I think our effort and how we played showed that we deserved to win the game, although the result was open until the end”, said Giannis Sfairopoulos after the game.
Hunter added up to Dorsey’s efforts with 11 points and Dragan Bender had 9 points and 4 rebounds.
On the other end of the court, Trey Thompkins led the Spanish side with 20 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists, Alberto Abalde tapped 13 points for Real that falls to a 13-8 record.
Photo: EuroLeague