Lucky 7: Maccabi Trounces Hapoel Holon at Nokia Arena

Coach Blatt’s starting five were Jeremy Pargo, Lior Eliyahu, Guy Pnini, Doron Perkins, and Sofoklis Schortsanitis, while Holon led off with Moran Roth, Robert Hite, Jamie Arnold, Kasib Powell, and Rich Melzer.
Maccabi started strong in the opening minutes, with Sofo easily handling the double-and triple teaming of Holon and scoring six quick points.
But Holon was not intimidated, and took the lead off a dunk by Arnold, 8 – 7 after two and a half minutes.
The lead see-sawed for the next several minutes with Pnini and Sofo keeping Maccabi in the game, until a shot from downtown by Pargo gave Maccabi a 19 – 18 lead with less than three and a half left in the period.
Hite was able to tie the game at 23 but points and an assist from Blu (the latter to Chuck Eidson in the corner for a three) gave Maccabi a slim lead at the end of the first quarter, 28 – 26.

The game stayed close at the start of the second quarter, tying again at 30 in the early minutes.
Two from the foul line by Perk gave Maccabi the lead for good with a minute and a half elapsed.
A three-pointer from team co-captain Tal Burstein (assist Eidson) put Maccabi up 35 – 30 and cracked the game wide open.
A steal by Eidson led to a dunk by Eliyahu and an amazing off-balance shot off the glass by Perkins (and one) added to the entertainment.
Maccabi’s demon defense was in full force, picking enough Holon pockets to make even Fagin happy; the fruits of those labors included more dunks from Eliyahu and Perk, and a long bomb from Blu from beyond the top of the arc.
An elegant spin-and-shoot by Eidson put Maccabi up by twenty with just over three and a half minutes left in the half, 52 – 32.
The pre-halftime show ended with a pair of Burstein to Yaniv Green plays, and the teams headed to the lockers rooms with the score 56 – 40.

Maccabi kicked off the second half with a 9 – 0 scoring run that included a three from Pargo, a bucket by Blu off a steal by Perk, and a diving save by Perkins that again led to Blu points.
After three minutes Maccabi’s lead was up to 65 – 40.
Maccabi’s defense was ironclad, keeping the visitors to a pathetic three points for most of the quarter, out of what would be a total of six points in the period.
Meanwhile, Maccabi continued their looting and pillaging, with a putback by Richard Hendrix with two minutes left in the quarter giving Maccabi a thirty point lead, 76 – 46.
An assist from team captain Derrick Sharp to Hendrix added to the fun, and Pargo closed out Maccabi’s 26 – 6 run in the period with two from the charity stripe, 82 – 46.

In the fourth quarter, Maccabi picked right up where they’d left off.
The Sharpshooter showed he’s still got his chops, firing off one of his classic three-pointers from the corner to put Maccabi up 87 – 46 after a minute and a half.
Pnini executed a nifty spin-and-shoot and Green wowed the crowd with a mid-range fade-away with two and a half gone, 91 – 48 to Maccabi.
Holon finally scored after nearly ten minutes of silence, but Maccabi had the game well in hand.
With four minutes left, newcomer Jeff Foote came into the game for his first regular season appearance at Nokia, where he was greeted by cheers and applause.
But the final minutes of the game belonged to Maccabi’s beloved Captain Sharp, who scored easily off an inbounds pass and then gave the fans their favorite kind of finish: another three-pointer from the corner that gave Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv a 102 – 63 win over Hapoel Holon.

Box Scores
Maccabi: Schortsanitis 12 points; Blu 11 points; Burstein (7 assists), Pargo (6 assists), and Eliyahu 10 points each; Pnini, Perkins and Eidson 9 points each; Sharp and Hendrix 8 points each; Green 6 points.

Holon: Melzer 19 points; Arnold 12 points; Powell and Hite 8 points each; Davidi 5 points; Ben David, Roth and Cohen 3 points each.