By Amy Samin <\/FONT> Maccabi\u2019s starting five in the game against Ljubljana were Williams, White, Arroyo, Burstein and Batista. The host team opened with Ilievski, Rudez, Milic, Begic, and Ozbolt.<\/FONT> The Slovenians started off the game by coming to a quick 5 \u2013 0 lead over Maccabi, and it looked like the scenarios from previous games were carrying over into this one. The Israeli team didn\u2019t give up, though, and in spite of two three point shots by Ilievski, the score was tied 8 \u2013 8 three and a half minutes into the game. Slack play on defense by Maccabi allowed Ljubljana to retake the lead, and then build on it. After a three pointer by Ozbolt, the host team\u2019s lead reached double digits, 19 \u2013 8 with four minutes left in the quarter. As we\u2019ve seen in earlier games, the opposing team was able to penetrate Maccabi\u2019s defense time after time, on their way to easy baskets. In addition, Maccabi\u2019s offense didn\u2019t put on much of a show. The lead got up to 14 points before White and Burstein scored near the end of the quarter to bring the score to 27 \u2013 15, in favor of Ljubljana.<\/FONT> Ljubljana\u2019s lead continued to grow in the second quarter thanks to the Slovenian\u2019s skilled ball handling and Maccabi\u2019s poor defense. Only points scored by Arroyo and Eliyahu kept the lead from running away beyond the point of recovery, and the score was 34 \u2013 23 in favor of Ljubljana four minutes into the second quarter. Just as Maccabi was closing the gap and starting to look better, suddenly the turnovers and missed rebounds returned and the Slovenians put on a burst of scoring that brought the score to 43 \u2013 25, with three minutes left in the half. In the time remaining in the quarter, Ljubljana continued to dominate as Maccabi missed shot after shot. At the half, the score stood at 48 \u2013 29.<\/FONT> The second half opened with each team following its course from the first half of the game. Ljubljana scored at will, and kept their lead over Maccabi hovering at the 20 point mark, 59 \u2013 37 after five minutes of play in the third quarter. The Slovenians kept up that lead for most of the quarter, but the last minutes of the quarter were good ones for Casspi and Eliyahu; in addition, some dazzling shots by Arroyo helped to close that lead. Maccabi\u2019s streak concluded with a three pointer by Casspi in the closing seconds of the quarter, which brought the score to 68 \u2013 55, and gave Maccabi the best quarter of play they\u2019d had in awhile.<\/FONT> Lior Eliyahu played well on offense and defense, and led the other Maccabi players in closing Ljubljana\u2019s lead at the start of the fourth quarter. A basket by the forward brought the score to 70 \u2013 61, and gave the team renewed hope, but a technical foul called on Maccabi head coach Efy Birenboim threatened to break the momentum. The Israelis, with Hagag, Eliyahu and Casspi in the driver\u2019s seat, also showed great improvement on defense. A long pass from Hagag to Casspi resulted in another basket, 78 \u2013 72 with three minutes left in the game. Maccabi continued to draw closer, and put a full-court press on the Slovenians to try and steal the ball. A fantastic three point shot by Casspi brought the score to 82 \u2013 79 with half a minute left in the game. The Slovenians missed their shot, and Maccabi had ten seconds to try and tie the game with a three pointer. A quick foul on Arroyo brought him to the free throw line. The point guard made his first free throw, then tried to miss the second, but ended up making that one as well. The Slovenians closed the game by scoring another point from the line, and the game ended with another Maccabi loss: 83 \u2013 81.<\/FONT> Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv finished fourth in the Ljubljana Tournament, losing to the host team 83 \u2013 81 after a fourth quarter comeback nearly brought them the victory. Eliyahu was a standout with 18 points. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-28031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494695,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28031\/revisions\/494695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28031"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=28031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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