Lior Eliyahu and D’or Fischer are Top 16 Week 1 MVPs in the Euroleague, with 28 points each on the index. Carlos Arroyo leads the current standings for assists, and Pini Gershon marks his 100th career Euroleague victory.
By Amy Samin
It should be pointed out that Thursday’s 96 – 65 victory over Alba Berlin was the first time Maccabi has won a Euroleague game by more than 30 points since the victory over Ulcer 2004/2005 season when, not surprisingly, Pini Gershon was also head coach of the club.
Gershon has another reason to be proud: the win over the Germans was his 100th Euroleague victory.
For the first time this season, and only the fourth time in the last decade, there is a three-way tie for MVP of the Week in the Euroleague.
Two of the three are Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv’s agile big men, D’or Fischer and Lior Eliyahu.
The graceful pair led Maccabi to a stunning victory over Alba Berlin (96 – 65) in Week 1 of Top 16 play earlier this week.
Eliyahu, who has had a phenomenal season so far, led all scorers in that game with 22 points in addition to the 8 rebounds and 2 assists that combined to give him a score of 28 on the index for the week.
Fischer, who has put up numbers just as impressive as the Israeli forward, scored 21 points, brought down 8 rebounds and blocked 4 shots to give him a 28 score as well.
The third member of the Tri-MVP is Nikola Pekovic of Greek team Panathinaikos, who last season was an outstanding player in Europe while wearing the uniform of Partisan Belgrade.
His meet-up against his former team resulted in his best game since putting on the green uniform of Pao.
Pekovic finished with 26 points (14 of 15 from the free throw line) and 6 rebounds, which also gave him 28 points on the index, and which most certainly enabled Panathinaikos to an easy win, 81 – 63.
Carlos Arroyo apparently took advantage of the presence of Dee Brown, which enabled him to focus on running the game and favoring his teammates with skillful assists.
Arroyo is the leading passer in the Euroleague this week, with 10 assists – twice as many as those who appear in second place on this week’s list of leading playmakers.
That fact raises Arroyo to third place in the Euroleague with an average of 4.8 assists per game.
Papaloukas continues to lead with 5.
Although Lior Eliyahu and D’or Fischer were selected as outstanding players of the week, Maccabi’s new purchase, Dee Brown, deserves praise for his contribution.
Brown, who entered the game in the middle of the second quarter and spent a little over 21 minutes on the court, brought a lot of energy with him into the game and proved how smart Maccabi was to acquire him.
Brown finished the game with 11 points (3 for 3 from outside the arc) and a total of 13 index points.
Other outstanding players for Maccabi were Omri Casspi (12 points, 4 rebounds, 3 steals), Carlos Arroyo (8 points, 10 assists), Marcus Brown (11 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists), Yaniv Green (8 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks).
Fischer continues to lead the Euroleague with a 22.4 index score.
Lior Eliyahu isn’t far away, in fourth place with 20.1 index points, ahead of big stars like Rakocevic and Becirovic in fifth and sixth places, respectively.
Eliyahu is ranked sixth in the Israeli league with an average of 15.4 points per game, and he is the leading scorer in Maccabi.
D’or Fischer, who leads the club with 7.7 rebounds per game, is ranked fourth in the Euroleague.
Arroyo, as mentioned previously, is Maccabi’s leading passer with 4.8 assists per game, very close to Papaloukas who is in first place in the Euroleague.
