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Although they are not overly impressive this season, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem are an undisputed force in Israeli basketball. The balance of teams in the league will testify to this in the best way when Yannis Sapropoulos and Oded Katash suffered a single loss each.
Tonight (Thursday) the two teams will meet at Yad Eliyahu when they are very vulnerable. The Blue and Yellows continued to show instability when they lost to Zenit St. Petersburg on Tuesday while the Reds suffered a premiere loss in the local arena the day before against Nes Ziona. Although the prestige of the meeting between Sapropoulos and Katsch cannot be ignored, not all of them chose two key players. Host Tyler Dorsey and Chris Jones have not been signed, and in addition Othello Hunter will not play due to the injury under his eye. On the other hand, Jacoben Brown will be missing due to his shoulder pain.
It should be noted that even if the Yellows win, they will not reach the top because Maccabi Tel Aviv has two games to complete. In any case, the season is still quite long and a victory or loss today will not change too much beyond the moral sense. Each team has two victories when Maccabi won the games in June and July in the top playoffs while the Reds did so in the State Cup and in the regular season.
The host is hoping for a big evening of its top scenes in the league, Scotty Wilbkin – averaging 21.7 points per game and Elijah Bryant – 19.5 after the disappointing loss to the Russian team. Katsch, on the other hand, will rely on Chris Kramer – 13.6 and Suleiman Braimo – 16, who were not at their best against the Oranges.
The quintet of Maccabi Tel Aviv: Wilbkin, Bryant, Sussman, Cloiaro, Žižić.
The quintet of Hapoel Jerusalem: Blatt, Kramer, Wilson, Thomas, Braimo.
