{"id":31676,"date":"2011-11-19T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-19T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/still-undefeated-maccabi-beats-union-olimpija-67-66\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T08:40:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T05:40:40","slug":"still-undefeated-maccabi-beats-union-olimpija-67-66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/still-undefeated-maccabi-beats-union-olimpija-67-66\/","title":{"rendered":"Still Undefeated: Maccabi Beats Union Olimpija 67 \u2013 66"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>By Amy Samin<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>It was another hard-won victory for Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv, but they defeated Union Olimpija 67 \u2013 66. Eliyahu was excellent with 19 points. Blu added 13 points and Langford contributed 11. Ohayon, who had another great night, helped guarantee the victory with a steal and layup in the final seconds of the game. Maccabi doesn\u2019t have much chance to rest; in less than 24 hours they\u2019ll face their biggest Israeli League rival, Hapoel Jerusalem.<\/FONT> <\/P> <P align=center><IFRAME height=330 src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RUFwIG0zj7c\" frameBorder=0 width=425 allowfullscreen><\/IFRAME><\/P> <P align=center><BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Blatt\u2019s starting five were Devin Smith, David Blu, Yogev Ohayon, Sofo Schortsanitis, and Keith Langford. Visitors Union Olimpija scored twice in the early minutes of the first quarter, but were soon answered by points from Sofo and then Langford, who went on to score from outside the arc (assist Blu) to make it 7 \u2013 4, Maccabi. Ratko Varda and Danny Green combined to put Union Olimpija back on top, but Sofo cut through his defenders like a hot knife through butter, and Smith took a coast-to-coast trip to make it 13 \u2013 9, Maccabi with just over four minutes left in the period. Theo Papaloukas scored on his own putback but the Slovenians continued to dog Maccabi\u2019s heels. The first quarter ended with Maccabi up by two, <B>17 \u2013 15<\/B>.<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The first few minutes of the second period were all Lior Eliyahu, who scored nine straight points to make it 26 \u2013 18. Deon Thompson broke the run and Sasu Salin added more points for Union Olimpija to set the score at 26 \u2013 22 near the halfway mark in the quarter. Blu scored off a dish from Richard Hendrix, but the visitors scored from the charity stripe to keep it close, 28 \u2013 25 with two minutes left in the half. Varda was called for his fourth foul, and his reaction to the call led to his fouling out on a technical charge, enabling Blu to add two more points to Maccabi\u2019s total. Thompson scored but was answered first by Hendrix and then by Langford from the foul line, and the half ended with Maccabi leading <B>33 \u2013 29<\/B>.<\/FONT> <\/P> <P align=center><IMG border=1 hspace=0 alt=\"\" align=baseline src=\"https:\/\/www.maccabi.co.il\/mtpic\/20111119%200252.jpg\"><BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Maccabi started out well in the third period as Eliyahu once again demonstrated his skill with points and a steal that gave Maccabi some breathing room, 37 \u2013 31 after two minutes of play in the quarter. The visitors cut that lead to one, 39 \u2013 38 after four and a half minutes. But in the next minute, Maccabi went on a 9 \u2013 0 scoring run thanks to Eliyahu, Blu and Langford, who played very well on both offense and defense, scoring a layup and 1 and then delivering on an alley oop from Eliyahu to make it 48 \u2013 38, Maccabi. Maccabi\u2019s defense continued to keep Union Olimpija reined in, while points by Eliyahu (assists Papaloukas and Blu) and Hendrix (assist Papaloukas) helped Maccabi finish out the period with a solid lead, <B>54 \u2013 45<\/B>.<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The Slovenians were not willing to concede the game, and came out hard in the fourth quarter, going on a 7 \u2013 0 run of their own to pull within two, 54 \u2013 52 after a minute and fifteen seconds. Blu scored from the right corner to break their rhythm, but Green and company fought back and took the lead, 59 \u2013 57 with three and a half minutes left in the game. Two quick buckets by Hendrix put the lead back in Maccabi\u2019s hands, but Salin quickly tied the score at 61. Blu scored again from downtown (assist Ohayon) to make it 64 \u2013 61, Maccabi with less than two minutes on the clock. Ohayon grabbed a timely steal and converted it to points at the other end, giving Maccabi a 66 \u2013 62 lead with 19 seconds left. The Slovenians scored a Hail Mary at the buzzer, but it wasn\u2019t quite enough and Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv defeated Union Olimpija Ljubljana <B>67 \u2013 66<\/B>.<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial><B><U>BOXSCORE<\/U><\/B><\/FONT><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial><B>Maccabi<\/B>: Eliyahu 19 points, 9 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal; Blu 13 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal; Langford 11 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals; Hendrix 8 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal; Schortsanitis 6 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal; Ohayon 6 points, 3 assists, 1 rebound, 1 steal; Papaloukas 2 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists; Smith 2 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist.<\/FONT> <BR><\/P> <P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Top scorers for Union Olimpija: Thompson 15 points; Salin 12 points; Bertans 10 points.<\/FONT> <\/P> <P align=center><IMG border=1 hspace=0 alt=\"\" align=baseline src=\"https:\/\/www.maccabi.co.il\/mtpic\/HK8C5003.jpg\"><BR><\/P> <P><A href=\"https:\/\/www.samintranslations.com\/\" target=_blank><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><U>www.samintranslations.com<\/U><\/FONT><\/A><FONT size=2 face=Arial> <\/FONT><\/P> <P><BR><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Their dramatic 67 \u2013 66 win over Union Olimpija Ljubljana left Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv the only undefeated (7 \u2013 0) team in the Adriatic League.  Eliyahu was excellent with 19 points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-31676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-54"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31676","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=31676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":496552,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31676\/revisions\/496552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31676"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=31676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}