An Away Win for Maccabi Over Ashkelon 86 – 69 Evens the Series at 1 – 1

By Amy Samin

After last week’s loss, Maccabi had to win this one, and in fact sealed the deal before the end of the first half.
Lior Eliyahu, who led all scorers with 20, had an excellent game.
The two teams meet again this Thursday at Nokia Arena.

Maccabi opened with Marcus Brown, Carlos Arroyo, Lior Eliyahu, Omri Casspi and D’or Fischer.
Ashkelon’s starting five included Avi Ben Chimol, Tre Kelley, Tyrone Grant, Rahshon Turner and Or Eitan.

Casspi scored a quick 5 points in the early minutes of the game, contributing to Maccabi’s 9 – 5 lead after three and a half minutes.
Arroyo and Brown supplied more points, and Maccabi’s lead gradually grew to double digits, 15 – 5 with three and a half remaining in the quarter.
The visitors were on fire at both ends of the court, with excellent defense playing a part in the score, while hosts Ashkelon seemed frozen on offense.

Marcus Brown dominated in the first period, scoring 12 and taking Maccabi to a 27 – 13 lead at the buzzer.

Maccabi continued to dominate in the second quarter, and Ashkelon didn’t score their first points of the period until three minutes had gone by.
At that point, Maccabi led by 20, 35 – 15.
Ashkelon’s game started to improve as time went on, with points from Amit Tamir and a strong inside game by Turner.
Maccabi responded by moving into Showtime, with an alley-oop from Arroyo to Fischer putting Maccabi up 39 – 20 with three minutes until the half.
The visitors cut through Ashkelon’s flabby defense like butter, and furious time-outs called by Ashkelon head coach Robbie Belinko didn’t help his team at all.
A pretty three-pointer by Tal Burstein capped off the quarter, and the half ended with Maccabi leading, 49 – 25.

The second half was marked by a reawakening by Ashkelon, who outscored Maccabi 11 – 2 in the early minutes and closed the gap to 51 – 36.
Eliyahu put the brakes on their runaway train by scoring 6 points, while a three-pointer from Arroyo put Maccabi back up by a comfortable margin, 60 – 38 with five and half minutes gone in the third period.
Maccabi tightened up on defense, and a shot from outside the arc by Casspi was just one more nail in Ashkelon’s coffin.
Maccabi had cruised to a 69 – 45 lead by the end of the third quarter.

It seemed Ashkelon didn’t have the energy to try for another come-back at the start of the final quarter, and that trend hadn’t changed when a dunk by Fischer put Maccabi up 80 – 55 after five minutes of play; Burstein and Limonad joined him in displaying fine ability at the baseline.
The teams continued to play long minutes of garbage-time, and Maccabi started sending in players off the bench while waiting patiently for the game to end.
Finally, the clock ran out and Maccabi racked up an 86 – 69 victory over Ashkelon, evening the series to 1 – 1.

Box Scores

Maccabi: Eliyahu 20 points, 6 rebounds; M. Brown 17 points; Arroyo 13 points, 5 assists; Fischer 12 points; Casspi 10 points; Burstein 5 points; Green 4 points; D. Brown 3 points.

Ashkelon: Burton and Turner, 12 points each; Tamir and Roberts 10 points each; Grant 9 points; Truscott 7 points; Eitan 5 points; Cohen and Davidi 2 points each.

“This is our level of ability, and we need to show it,” said Maccabi head coach Pini Gershon.
“We weren’t focused in the first game, and we could have played better.
It’s all mental, and the results of the first game are proof of that.
This time, the team played as a unit and our defense was great.
I hope I won’t need to say anything else.”

Marcus Brown added, “We wanted to come and play together well, to show our strengths and to be consistent.
The mental part is to be aggressive and stubborn, and that’s what we did here.
We wanted to show that we’ve gotten over the loss at home.
If we play this way in the next game, there shouldn’t be any problem.”

Lior Eliyahu said, “We’ve gotten criticism in the past, and there will be more to come.
I do the maximum, and even when I was in a bad patch, I did my best.
I’m happy we came to play with our backs against the wall, and from the beginning we played like we should.
At this stage there’s a lot of struggling and fighting.
If we go into the next game like we did here, we’ll win at Nokia.”