In spite of a decent first half, Maccabi let the game get away from them during the third quarter, and were defeated by the Spaniards by 20 points. Fischer scored 17 points, Casspi had 11.
By Amy Samin
Maccabi opened the game with their usual fivesome: Omri Casspi, Lior Eliyahu, Carlos Arroyo, D’or Fischer and Marcus Brown.
The host team started with Daniel Santiago, Lubos Barton, Ersan Ilyasova, Juan Carlos Navarro, and Victor Sada.
Fischer and Eliyahu were able to score at the start of the game, but their points were answered on the other end by Navarro.
Two quick fouls called on Fischer saw him sit out the next minutes on the bench and after three minutes of play Maccabi found themselves down 8 – 4.
Arroyo and Casspi succeeded in scoring, not only keeping Maccabi in the game, but tying the score 10 – 10 at one point.
Weak play on offense and on defensive rebounds by Maccabi saw
Before the end of the quarter the game was disrupted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators storming the court, but that didn’t faze Maccabi either; and the quarter ended with Maccabi down by only four, 20 – 16.
Three and a half minutes into the quarter,
Maccabi tried to stand up to the tight defense and fast pace of the home team; a three-pointer and a drive to the basket by Arroyo helped close the gap to 33 – 26 with four and a half minutes remaining in the half.
The Spaniards answered with their own shots from downtown, and put their lead back up into double digits, but Maccabi fought back hard, and thanks to good defense and well-coordinated offense that resulted in points for Tal Burstein and Fischer, were able to shrink
The half ended with the hosts leading 39 – 33.
Fischer had some excellent plays at the start of the second half, including a basket from mid-distance and a block on Vazquez, which helped Maccabi close in on
Maccabi could have taken advantage and moved in closer, but missed shots and turnovers on offense ended up being translated into three-pointers by Barcelona, who took advantage of Fischer and Casspi both being called for their third fouls of the game, and reopened a big lead, 50 – 39 with four minutes remaining in the period.
Mistakes by Arroyo, who missed a key three-pointer and couldn’t keep up with Basile (who went on to score from outside the arc) saw the Puerto Rican benched and the Spanish lead rise to 55 – 40 with two and a half minutes remaining in the quarter.
With Maccabi down by the biggest margin of the game Marcus Brown took control, scoring shots and passing assists to Fischer.
Maccabi looked to be getting back into the game, but three-pointers scored by Barcelona at the other end cut short Maccabi’s reawakening, and at the end of the period the score stood at 61 – 47.
An unsportsmanlike call against the frustrated Arroyo after points scored by Andersen and Ilyasova at the start of the final period signaled the end of Maccabi’s effective participation in the game.
A time-out called by Maccabi head coach Pini Gershon didn’t help, and
Maccabi’s efforts to keep their deficit at a reasonable level failed, and the exhausted visitors simply didn’t have what it took to keep up with the seemingly-limitless bench of
An exchange of three-pointers by Casspi and Basile set the final score: 85 – 65,
Box Scores
Maccabi: Fischer 17 points, 11 rebounds; Casspi 11 points; Arroyo 9 points; Eliyahu and Green 8 points each; M. Brown 6 points, 6 assists; D. Brown 4 points; Burstein 2 points.
Barcelona: Andersen17 points; Basile 16 points; Navarro 12 points; Ilyasova 11 points; Vazquez 10 points; Grimau 8 points; Barrett, Barton and Sada 3 points each; Santiago 2 points.
