The traditional Eilat tournament kicked off tonight (Monday) with the first semi-final, in which Hapoel Jerusalem beat Hapoel Beer Sheva/Dimona 74:86, and the preparation remained perfect.
Alexander Dzikic's team, still without Sim-Sander and Nena who has not yet trained with the team, and Gilad Levy who is in training, ran to a 16-point lead in the first quarter and never looked back on the way to a 0:3 balance in the preparatory games.
Lior Liubin's team is missing Joaquin Shuchman who represented Israel in the 3x3 European Championship.
Jerusalem started with the five with Speedy Smith, Orr Cornelius, Levi Randolph, Oz Blazer and Zach Hankins.
Beer Sheva with Neta Segal, David Afiani, Igor Kolshov, Ben Mor and Tidjan Keita.
Blazer and Hankins gave the group from the capital an early advantage, Afiani and Segal kept Beer Sheva close with shots from the outside, but Itai Segev and Kadin Carrington who came off the bench led an escape to the lead 12:28 after 10 minutes.
Russ Smith scored first points and together with Segal and Roy Pritzky tried to get closer, but Randolph closed the first half well, 31:52.
Jerusalem did not concede a single point until the middle of the third quarter, Hankins and Blazer continued to set the tone and Cornelius' 3-pointer established a 28-point difference, before Tomer Porat lowered the score to 66:43 at the end of the third quarter.
Beer Sheva didn't give up and came close to minus 11, but Randolph with beautiful actions prevented her from dreaming of a comeback.
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