Maccabi Tel Aviv did what was assigned to it yesterday (Sunday) and easily beat Hapoel Galil Alyion in the hall in Kfar Blum with a score of 67:96 and achieved the second league victory in a row thanks to a wonderful game by Roman Sorkin, who led five Yellows who scored in double figures.
In contrast to five of the last six league meetings between the teams in Kfar Blum, which were decided by a single-digit margin, this time and in the current situation of Barak Peleg's team, which features only three foreigners in the squad, the differences in quality were large and felt right from the start that the yellow difference reached the region of 20 points in the second quarter, when the balance was For the record only.
Ketch took advantage of the difference that jumped to 30 points in the second half to make wide rotations in the squad, shared all his players, and got a great output from his Israeli players led by Roman Sorkin and Rafi Manko (13 points each), along with high team shooting percentages from all ranges (79.3% for two points , 36.7% for threes), which led to the victory, with Yeftah Ziv (10 points), Jake Cohen (9 points) and Josh Niebo (11 points and 8 rebounds) also participating in the celebration.
Yeftah Ziv
Another good game in the league, photo: Oded Karni
"It was a good game, everyone who came up was focused defensively. Today, more than ever, we know what we want from ourselves. I felt that everyone who came up contributed, so we were able to distribute the minutes and the load, which is what is most important in our busy game schedule," shared Oded Ketch at the end.
"I wasn't looking for special things. We need to be focused, we did a good job in many minutes. The only ones who played over 20 minutes were Rafi and Petah, who justified it. This is mostly what we needed."
On the eve of the match, Oded Ketch decided to rest his star Lorenzo Brown, and did not register him for the match.
In the absence of the coordinator, the Yellows looked for another player to take the reins and excel, and they found it in Darren Hilliard who contributed 13 points already in the first half, in his best game of the season in the local framework and finished as the second best scorer in the team.
"He was good, like the whole team. This is what he does throughout his career and this is what he should do. When we play correctly, he gets his looks," Ketch complimented the scorer.
Rafi Manko, who produced a season record with 13 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists, shared his feelings at the end and his direction towards Anadolu Efes, who will arrive at the hall on Thursday: "We stuck to the game plan, in defense we managed to keep them at a low score. We put emphasis on it and improve. We meet on the day Thursday is a good offensive team and they want to get work done."
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