Maccabi Rapyd Tel Aviv earned their first preseason victory, crushing Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg 102–77 as part of a tournament held in Belgrade. The yellows returned to a familiar arena – their “temporary home” in the EuroLeague, the Aleksandar Nikoli? Hall – and displayed excellent, fluid basketball with great three-point shooting. The win set up a matchup on Saturday at 20:00 (Israel time), when Maccabi will face Partizan Belgrade at the same venue (live broadcast on 5SPORT).
Oded Kattash’s men controlled the scoreboard from the opening tip and pulled away after halftime. Lonnie Walker IV shook off some rust and showed his skills with a 25-point performance, 15 of them in the first quarter alone, on an efficient 9-of-14 shooting. Jeff Dowtin Jr. was also excellent with 19 points on 7-of-11 from the field, while Jimmy Clark added 10. In total, Maccabi shot 46% from beyond the arc and got points from all 12 players on the roster.
“First of all, a win is a win,” said Dowtin Jr. post-game. “We definitely played together, corrected many of the defensive mistakes we had in the first preseason game. We ran well in transition, which was a big factor, and we hit a lot of open shots. We worked on that all week, so I’m excited about the win. We’ve got another game tomorrow and I’m looking forward to continuing in this direction.”
“It’s always better to win and it feels good, but we’re in a learning process,” added head coach Oded Kattash. “There are many players who need to learn what we’re doing and get used to the European style of play. It was a good practice game, mainly to keep building our process and learning. Even though we’re missing Jalen and Roman, as a team we can take a lot from today’s game. Because of the season’s intensity and the fact that we don’t have many practice games, every one of them is like gold for us. We still have a lot of work ahead.”
