By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The night in Tel Aviv started with the hosts honoring their legends, Maceo Baston and Derrick Sharp, and ended with an old-school triumph.
Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv beat Khimki Moscow Region got the crucial 79-63 win in the most a-typical way for the Israelis. The players of coach Giannis Sfairopoulos played bone-crushing defense, while Khimki without the injured duo of Alexey Shved and Anthony Gill couldn’t keep up.
To be exact Khimki scored just 13 and 11 points in the second and in the third quarter. As a result, Maccabi which was trailing by two at the end of the first period (18-16) was down by 19 (61-49) just before the start of the last ten minutes of action.
“We dominated the game because we played very good defense“, said coach Giannis Sfairopoulos. “We allowed 31 and 32 points in two halves. And although we played one of our best defensive games so far, I believe that in the first half we were a little nervous and actually this caused us to be missing shots, missing layups, some hesitations, and turnovers“.
Scottie Wilbekin scored 14 points, Ray Kendrick added 17 and every player of Maccabi who was used by Sfairopoulos scored.
Khimki, on the other hand, made just six out of 24 threes, a number which is probably the most important stat of the game. Jordan Mickey tried his best with 15 points but it was not enough.
As coach Giorgos Bartzokas said after the game: “I cannot say we have played with a selfish mentality, but we could pass the ball more. Maccabi felt confidence from this, found a lot of confidence in transition and won the game. They deserved it. Anyway, it’s a difficult environment to play over here to win, but we needed to play much better, even if we had played all together, with Shved and Gill“.
The two teams are now tied with four wins after 13 games.