Tiktukno, 15.3/Sport1
Maccabi Tel Aviv continued its excellent run in all formats when last night (Saturday) it registered its 11th league victory in a row and remained undefeated since February 8, when it beat Hapoel Afula 78:95 at Menora Hall.
The yellows rose to the top of the table for at least two hours, until the victory of Hapoel Tel Aviv in Jerusalem, and they will remain below them unless the reds lose in Herzliya in the middle of the week.
The start of the game was the blackest that Maccabi, which appeared without Lorenzo Brown, Hasiel Rivero and Bonzie Coulson, could think of.
Afula ran to 2:17, and Maccabi looked for the solutions.
The yellows caught the sympathetic team from the valley towards the end of the first half, and in the second half they ran away quite quickly to a double-digit lead and finished the game.
Maccabi's star in the game, as in the last league games, was John DiBartholomeo who scored 20 points, including 5 from 5 for 3, in only 19 shots, with Jake Cohen adding 16 points and 8 rebounds.
DiBartolomeo is at 17.3 points, including 12 of the last 13 three-pointers he has made, in the league.
Before that he was 8.5 points including 23 of 56 from beyond the arc only.
"John is amazing," Jake Cohen complimented his friend, "we've played something like 270 games together in my career, and he still amazes me. His play was inspiring. I'm lucky he's been my teammate for so long, he saved the Our ass for so long, and he's a great friend, so I'm very lucky. Every time John throws, I'm sure the ball goes in. It's always the best option for him, I have a lot of confidence in him. Every time he plays and he throws, it's Entered".
He is again.
Jondi/Bernie Ardov
Regarding the weak start to the game, Cohen said: "You can find many excuses for why we started the game weak. The game schedule is one. You don't need to focus on that, everything is true, but you still need to start the game better. Focusing on why we didn't play with the right energy is wrong , we had to spend more energy to get back into the game. The focus will be on how to find the energy from the beginning."
The Yellows will fly to Belgrade tomorrow for the game against Villervan, which will open the last double week of the Euroleague season for them, at least until the playoffs.
Unlike every other double week, this time Maccabi will have three days to prepare for the second Euroleague match in the double week, when they will only play away on Friday against Bayern Munich.
The Yellows are still in the race for sixth place in the Euroleague table, and the club believes that there is a chance that if they win all the games until the end of the season, they will be able to catch it.
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