Maccabi Flattens Ramat Gan, 91 – 75

By Amy Samin

On the heels of their victory over Rishon Le-Zion on Friday, Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv racked up another practice game win, this time in an away game against Ironi Ramat Gan.
Eliyahu, Williams and Fischer had excellent games, and were among 6 Maccabi players to score in double figures.
This was Maccabi’s second win in a row, coming just four days before the team’s first Euroleague game of the season, against Cibona.

Maccabi opened the game with a quick dunk by D’Or Fischer off an assist by Tal Burstein, which was soon answered by Carmelo Lee of Ramat Gan, with five points in a row.
Williams scored a three-pointer with the help of Eliyahu and Fischer under the basket, and halfway through the quarter Maccabi led 16 – 9.

Ramat Gan scored from the free throw line, but two points by Omri Casspi gave Maccabi a double digit lead, 22 – 11, with three minutes left in the quarter.
The home team woke up a bit, with Lee scoring from outside and Shmulik Brener adding more points, and the score stood at 24 – 18 with Maccabi leading at the end of the first quarter.

Josh Gomes scored a three pointer for Ramat Gan at the start of the second quarter, and Ilan Berkowitz added another two, putting the score at
26 – 23 after minute and a half.
Anthony Myles scored from outside for Ramat Gan.
Simmons responded with two three-pointers which brought the score up to 33 – 26 after four minutes of play in the quarter.
A three-pointer and a nice assist to Simmons by Arroyo gave Maccabi a double digit lead over the host team.
Confusion on both sides of the court were cut short by shots from outside the arc by Gomes and Lee, bringing the score to 38 – 25 with two minutes left in the half.

Arroyo scored a layup on an assist from Hagag, but Gomes scored twice and the first half ended with the score 44 – 39.

The third quarter opened well for the host team, with Gomes scoring from outside and Myles scoring a basket and a foul shot, bringing the score to 46 – 45 a minute into the second half.
Maccabi stopped Ramat Gan’s comeback with a 6 – 0 scoring run, and Ramat Gan head coach Robby Belinko called a timeout with the score standing at 52 – 45.
Gomes scored another three, and Guy Pnini came into the game for Ramat Gan.
After a shot from downtown by Arroyo brought the score up to 66 – 55, Gomes replied with a three-pointer of his own.
Eliyahu threw a coast-to-coast pass to Casspi, who finished off the play with a dunk.
A huge block by Yaniv Green on Brener protected Maccabi’s lead, and the quarter ended with the score at 74 – 60.

The fourth quarter opened with Ramat Gan once again scoring first, but Maccabi quickly answered with a three-pointer by Simmons and a bucket by Williams from under the basket.
Myles was the only player for Ramat Gan with his head in the game, performing well under the basket.
After a few

minutes had passed with neither side scoring, Maccabi head coach Efy Birenboim called a time out with the score at 79 – 66 and with five minutes left on the clock.
After Simmons scored off an amazing assist from Arroyo, and Hagag scored after stealing the ball, Belinko called a timeout with his team on the losing end of a score of 87 – 69.
Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv defeated Ironi Ramat Gan, 91 – 75 in the final practice game before the start of the Euroleague season.

Box Scores

For Maccabi: Eliyahu 18 points, 5 rebounds; Arroyo 14 points, 4 assists; Simmons 13 points, 6 rebounds; Fischer 12 points, 5 rebounds; Williams 10 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists; Green 10 points, 6 rebounds; Batista, Casspi and Burstein (4 assists) 4 points each; Hagag 2 points.
Sharp played but did not score.

Top scorers for Ramat Gan: Gomes 21 points; Myles 15 points, 8 rebounds; Lee 15 points; Brener 10 points.

Maccabi head coach Efy Birenboim: “We benefit from every practice game.
It’s no secret that we come to every game with a roster of 12 players, and other teams with only about 6 and a half.
We need to be focused.
I think we benefited from good defensive playing by D’Or Fischer and Yaniv Green.
There were combinations of players that worked well, and others that worked less well.”

Lior Eliyahu, the game’s MVP: “We got a lot of good things from these games.
We’re still a new team, learning from one game to the next.
You can’t compare these games to Euroleague games, but we’ve used these games to learn to work together.
That’s the best it could be, under the circumstances.”

samintranslations@yahoo.com

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