In the first game between Bnei Herzliya and Hapoel Holon, Guy Goodes provided one of his best training performances in recent years.
While always looking at which player is fit and which is not, it can be said that Goodes is in record shape.
In the first game of the final series, in which the Purples won in the Jubilee Hall, we saw his training abilities in full encore.
From preparing for the game and selecting the roster (Dalton inside, Zack outside) to the last second he was active, changing defenses all the time, marking goals (stopping Chris Bab even before Chinano Onwako), dictating things on the floor and taking the game to places he wanted.
He also knew how to take care of his players mentally when the team fell behind.
It is amazing to see how a coach, who at the beginning of the season at Maccabi Rishon LeZion made every possible mistake, in Holon is not wrong at all.
Goodes has not known to this day in his career to penny a pound and win a championship.
He was always on hand.
He has one trophy with Maccabi Tel Aviv, but a trophy is not a championship and winning a title not at Maccabi Tel Aviv is still a special achievement in Israeli basketball.
He is now very close to a first championship, a title that will take the monkey off his back and give him a stamp.
Those who had doubts will no longer have doubts.
Goods with Holon players.
Want to make history, Photo: Alan Schieber
Experience.
It seems that for the first time, Oren Aharoni paid for his inexperience in the face of Goodes' experience.
The Herzliya coach, who played in one season for many years in which he did not coach in the Premier League, could not this time for Goodes, who only this season went through a large number of decisive games with his team, and in his career there are countless such.
But it's not just Aharoni.
Apart from Goodes and the Ragland-Maggie duo, what won Holon the first game, which is worth more than half a championship, is experience.
Holon's experience as a club, the fact that there have been quite a few big classes in recent years.
The preferred experience of its players and the experience of the staff in dealing with money-time games, most of which it won.
With all the (justified) enthusiasm for the success of Herzliya and its basketball, we almost forgot that it was a club that was far from these candidates for a long time, and that was in the second division two seasons ago.
The sub-players.
Joe Ragland and Tyros Maggie - the best pair of guards in the league - gave another great game, but notice who did Holon's two important actions at the end: a Haydn Dalton hat-trick and a Michael Kaiser block.
Add the good opening of Rafi Manko, and you will find that Holon was also superior in the field of sub-players.
Their counterparts in Herzliya - Sean Dawson, Sandy Cohen and Yair Kravitz, did not give the necessary extra.
Kaiser and Maggie, Photo: Danny Maron
This is the second game in a row that Kaiser appears in Money Time for Holon.
The victory in Jerusalem is a big block.
To remind you, a month ago at the Final Four in Bilbao there was a sharp incident between him and Goodes, which it was not clear where it would roll.
Everything got back in order quickly and just in time.
It is too early to draw conclusions.
And yet with the fact that there are not bad chances for tonight's celebrations in Holon and its surroundings, we will mention two things that happened in the playoff semifinals recently - Herzliya turned a delay into a victory (against Maccabi Tel Aviv), while Holon lost at home after an away victory at the Jerusalem arena.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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