Winner Cup 07/08

[ziv]

so, the israeli league is probably the last to start in europe. the tip off is 2 weeks away! 28/10.
but for the second straight year there's a tournment to start the season played in Jerusalem. this time maccabi also participate. one game - quarters, semis and finals, four days of games. that's it.
the quarters were played:
Naharyia surprisngly beat Bnei Hasharon 81-77 after being down 30-6 at the end of the first q. BH new forigen player Ndudi Ebi scored 27 and played well, though he's not as good as Neylon. israelis Peleg, Naor and Kozikaro (espcially the first 2) led Naharyia's comeback.
Hapoel Jerusalem beat Ramat Gan easily, 90-70. ex-maccabi Shasson and Arnold adjusted well. Pniny was good on both sides, Orland is a great 3pt shooter (4/5 - total of 12 points not a single shoot attampted from inside the arc). Blaylok and Curry were'nt very impressive, very passive game on their side.
Gilboa-Afula beat Galil Elyon 89-85 after leading most of the game. veterans Lemont Jones and Tunji Awojobi can still play and they led Giloba. Yogev Ohayon - this year without Katash as coach - is only 20 but he's a solid pg for the league and should be joining the NT soon. after gaining experince and strugling to get minutes he should be having his breakthrough this year. 23 points and 7 assists at this game.
Maccabi Tel Aviv was trailing Maccabi Rishon Letzion for 20 minutes (41-40 at HT) but Vujcic took charge of bussines in the 3rd quarter and maccabi won it 81-94. Fizer is too big and strong even for a big player like Juan Mandez. but maccabi didn't play well. Cummings pushed a ref and should've been kicked out (only got a technical foul). Morris was weak, Bluthntal is takin too many shoots imo but that's mostly because maccabi has no other player to play the 3 beside him (casspi plays very limited minutes). maccabi isn't paying much attention to deffense and the offense is pretty much a mess. that's Katash style. run, play freely, take the shoot. israeli teams aren't cappable of handling this but for the EL it could be risky.
on wed. Naharyia - MTA, Gilboa - Jerusalem and before that another match - Ashkelon-Holon (with Tre simmons, Eric Campbell, Malik Dixon and some nice israelis, should be interesting to watch Holon who is comming back to the top league after few years and with many fans supporting it).

[ziv]

so we're heading to the classic final of maccabi-hapoel tonight.
maccabi doesn't look too good atm. very vaulrenable it seems. Bluthental hitting from downtown is probably the only player looking good atm. big guys Vujcic and Fizer are ok, still not in best shape (espcially the first - the second had some foul trouble yesterday).
Hapoel is far from being great - to their behalf we should mention they're still looking for a 5. the 2 new americans played better yesterday but you'd stiil excpect your forigen players to be more productive. Pniny had another great game, Shasson is in form, so is Arnold and Bowers. the team look good together but they do lack size. still, with the home crowd it can be enough against maccabi tonight.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

keep it up with the comments ziv
Did Fizer lost some of his weight already? he did looked overweight in preparation games in Slovenia, while I have no doubt he could be playing great in proper condition (also good to know for El fantasy challenge )

[Arik]

Seems it will be the first interesting game in this season between two biggest rivals in Israeli basketball. I believe that former MTA players (Sasson and Arnold) will seek for revenge, because of shame way they were sacked from Maccabi. Maccabi will win because of the experience of Vujcic and the game level of Fizer and Bluth IMHO.

[MikeMaccabiFan]

Very good and solid patient game by Maccabi. Morris, Bluthental, Halperin and Eliyahu were great. Sharp showed new move on 3pt shot Defense was definitely better than in most pre-season games, Morris (as advertised) is great addition to Maccabi's defense line (and he will put those 3pters in the basket finally)

[ziv]

Halperin played extremly well. maccabi has only 3 guards atm (Bynum is still injured and Alex Garcia who came to fill in for Burstein is injured too. how stupid can it be - to sign an injury pron player to replace an injured player...) and since there are no guards halperin gets a lot of playing time. his talent is not questioned (at least not by me) but it the consistency and confidence issues.
Fizer has hard time posting up, Arnold did good work on him and he got some offensive fouls for using his arms while posting up. maccabi should learn better to find the passing angle that suit him (quick pass to the high post and than one more pass inside for example). Bluthental is in a great shooting mood. he can't miss a 3pointer. that's good for maccabi because atm he's the best option for the team at 3 poistion. Morris is very effective at shoot blocking and at getting offensive rebounds. his presence on both sides causes problem for the opponent. he changes shoots and make it hard for his player to double team Vujcic or Fizer. very nice adition.
as for Hapoel. Curry doesn't impress me at all, he's in a bad period but i don't see anything special at him. not quickness, ball handling, jump-shoot, passing or smartness. nothing specila. as mentioned - Sasson and Arnold play well, Bowers is as solid as always. Pniny played bad yesterday and a hard foul he did on Elyahu in mid-air lay-uping at open court got the headlines in israel today as he "only" got unsportsmanlike foul but wasn't disqualified (meaning it wasn't his second or anything like it - just a very bad foul that might get a player injured and it's allowed to through a player off the court for it).

[MikeMaccabiFan]

Halperin played extremly well. maccabi has only 3 guards atm (Bynum is still injured and Alex Garcia who came to fill in for Burstein is injured too. how stupid can it be - to sign an injury pron player to replace an injured player...)

I don't think Garcia is injured now - he was and therefore Maccabi wants to be sure he's over it, so he will undergo thorough medical check. And you can hardly expect player to enter the game two days after he landed here.

and since there are no guards halperin gets a lot of playing time. his talent is not questioned (at least not by me) but it the consistency and confidence issues.

I hope that Yotam solved those issues. I always said that he's got a talent, but needs to grow some balls. May be after great summer at NT he did it finally - at least it seems so.

Fizer has hard time posting up, Arnold did good work on him and he got some offensive fouls for using his arms while posting up. maccabi should learn better to find the passing angle that suit him (quick pass to the high post and than one more pass inside for example).

May be one more week of training with Niko will help. And his real test will be against big EL guys, not Jerusalem, Nahariya or Afula/Gilboa. Meanwhile he was good against Oly and NY Knicks.

Bluthental is in a great shooting mood. he can't miss a 3pointer. that's good for maccabi because atm he's the best option for the team at 3 poistion.

He was 10/11 in last two games, and one he missed was half-court buzzer-beating shot. Great form of him, hope he stays so. He is pretty good in defense too - and he can guard both players bigger and smaller than him and do it quite well.

Morris is very effective at shoot blocking and at getting offensive rebounds. his presence on both sides causes problem for the opponent. he changes shoots and make it hard for his player to double team Vujcic or Fizer. very nice adition.

Yes, Morris is banker for PL that's for sure. It still remains to be seen how he will play in EL games, I don't think he should have too much problems there too.

as for Hapoel. Curry doesn't impress me at all, he's in a bad period but i don't see anything special at him. not quickness, ball handling, jump-shoot, passing or smartness. nothing specila.

Blailock was also nothing to write home about.

as mentioned - Sasson and Arnold play well, Bowers is as solid as always.

Actually those three were only ones who showed decent game yesterday.
From the other side, Jerusalem took some good shots and missed them - Orland, for instance.

Pniny played bad yesterday and a hard foul he did on Elyahu in mid-air lay-uping at open court got the headlines in israel today as he "only" got unsportsmanlike foul but wasn't disqualified (meaning it wasn't his second or anything like it - just a very bad foul that might get a player injured and it's allowed to through a player off the court for it).

Pnini was not bad in offense, actually, but in defense he left Bluth and Caspi for free - and they didn't miss.
His foul was ugly - because of intention, not actual result, thank G-d. I watched game again tonight and paid attention that after foul Eliyahu wasn't even angry - he came to Pnini in shock, like "how can you do this to me?"...
Actually I more disappointed in Shamir, who didn't send Pnini to bench immediately. Maccabi also had ugly incidents from time to time in years, but offending player always was sent to bench or even to shower.