The fans waited and waited, followed the team on the Internet, in the newspapers and on television, and last night (Thursday) they finally got to see the real thing. In their first home game of the 2011 – 2012 season, Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv defeated Cibona Zagreb by a score of 97 – 81 in the third round of the Adriatic League. Jordan Farmar (7 assists) and Devin Smith (5 of 8 from three point range) wowed the home crowd with 19 points each. Lior Eliyahu contributed 14 points. Before tip-off, the club and fans celebrated assistant coach Derrick Sharp’s 40th birthday with cake, special decorations, flowers, and a framed tee shirt.

Maccabi head coach David Blatt started off with Devin Smith, Lior Eliyahu, Jordan Farmar, Yogev Ohayon, and Sofo Schortsanitis. With the capacity crowd egging them on, Maccabi started off strong and fierce, quickly taking an 8 – 3 lead that included two three pointers from Devin Smith (assists by Farmar). Jure Lalić scored twice for the Croatians to make it 10 – 8 after four minutes of play. Cibona continued to play well, and took a 14 – 13 lead with just under three minutes remaining in the period. But Smith and Farmar took care of business with fadeaway jumpers, catch and shoots, and steals, and the quarter ended with Maccabi leading 22 – 16.

The second quarter opened with tough defense as well as a layup and 1 from Shawn James, who made his Nokia debut in Maccabi yellow. But the visitors scored five quick points to narrow the gap to 25 – 21, three minutes into the period. A monster dunk by Sofo (assist David Blu) helped put Maccabi back on track and was quickly followed by points from Blu off a Hail Mary pass by Theo Papaloukas and a classic stop and pop from Guy Pnini, making it 32 – 21 near the halfway mark in the period. Smith added his fourth from downtown and Eliyahu scored four straight to expand Maccabi’s lead to 39 – 22 with just under four minutes left in the half. Maccabi stayed strong on defense, and Richard Hendrix scored a mid-range baseline jumper (assist Farmar); the teams went into the halftime break with Maccabi leading 41 – 29.

Cibona and Marin Rosić started off strong as the third quarter got underway, but a three by Pnini and a pair from outside the arc by Blu extended Maccabi’s lead to sixteen, 53 – 37. Fouls called on Sofo and James (who left the game with five fouls after being tagged with an unsportsmanlike charge) made things tougher for Maccabi. The visitors took advantage with shots from three point range, but points by Papaloukas (steal + dunk, three pointer) and Blu (three from the top of the arc, assist Papaloukas) kept Maccabi in control, 65 – 50 with less than three and a half left in the period. Five straight points by Smith and a dunk at the buzzer from Eliyahu ended the third quarter with Maccabi leading 76 – 58.

Maccabi dominated in the early minutes of the fourth quarter, but a foul plus technical called on the bench resulted in four from the charity stripe for Cibona, which they followed with buckets from Brian Matthew Chase and Tomislav Zubčić, and the visitors pulled within eight, 78 – 70, two and a half minutes into the period. Eliyahu, Pnini, and Farmar demonstrated strong moves in the paint to reopen Maccabi’s lead to 85 – 72, which forced Cibona to call for a timeout. The break didn’t seem to help much, as Farmar scored three from the left wing and Sofo added his own three-point play with a bucket and 1, followed by more points from Eliyahu which brought the score to 93 – 74 with three and a half minutes left on the clock. Sofo was called for his fifth foul and was replaced by Hendrix, who scored from the foul line and in the paint to wrap things up, and the game ended in a victory for Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv over Cibona Zagreb, 97 – 81.

David Blatt, Maccabi's coach: "The first home game of the season is always special. We always want to give our best for the fans, and I think tonight we succeeded. Professionally,
there were some very good minutes of the game, but there were also minutes that
are very characteristic of a first game. Offensively, we played very well in the
second half; defensively, our first half was excellent. I hope we'll be able to
put those two things together into one complete game. If we do, we can be a good
team, even a very good team."

MACCABI

“Cibona Zagreb has a different structure from that of our two previous opponents, and is a team that didn’t preserve a stable foundation. Their budget problems resulted in a turnover in players. At the start of every year they find new, talented players and build a good team, but we need to take advantage of the fact that they are just getting started. Cibona Zagreb has talented players, but we have really come together as a team and we’re definitely ready for this stage of the season," said coach David Blatt.

“They’re saying that Cibona is one of the best teams in the Adriatic League, and for sure tomorrow will be a different story from our last two games. Even so, I think that we’re the favorites here on our home court. We’re going to play our game; we’ll play aggressively and put on the pressure like we like to do. I hope that tomorrow it will work again,” added Lior Eliyahu.

CIBONA

Utakmica 3. kola ABA lige igra se ranije, na zahtjev Izraelaca, koji su prošli tjedan odradili dva slovenska gostovanja, u Novm Mestu i Laškom gdje su kombinirano pobijedili sa 44 razlike. Maccabi koji drži do tradicije, baš je s Cibonom htio otvoriti novu sezonu u svojoj dvorani. Cibosi su u Tel Aviv otputovali bez previše nade, niti ranije, dok su bili jači nisu se od tamo vraćali s pobjedom. Od 1983. su 13 puta gostovali u Dvorani Yad Eliyahu, koja već sedam godina nosi sponzorsko ime Nokia Arena, i samo jednom pobijedili, '92. kada je bilo 110:89.

Maccabi je za vrijeme trajanja NBA lockouta potpisao Jordana Farmara, a došla je i NCAA zvijezda Jon Schyer. Stigao je i Theo Papaloukas te šuter Devin Smith, kao i centar Shawn James. I ostali Schortsanitis, Eliyahu, Pnini, Blu, Mačvan, Burstein... "Gledao sam njihove dvije utakmice u Sloveniji ," kaže Josip Vranković, trener Cibone.

"Fizički je spremniji nego prošle sezone Sofoklis Schortsanitis, dok im je vanjska linija potpuno nova i prilično moćna. Naravno da bih više volio otvoriti sezonu s dvije domaće utakmice, ali i Maccabi i Radnički u nedjelju će nam biti dobar test. Ono što moramo je dizati razinu. Kasno smo se kompletirali, još se trebamo uigrati," zaključio je Joke Vranković svjestan da u Tel Avivu ne može tražiti puno.

Maccabi Electra - Cibona

97: 81 (22:16, 19:13, 35:29, 21:23)

Thursday, 06.10.2011. 21:00
Referees: Andrej Jeršan (SLO), Matej Boltauzer (SLO), Damir Javor (SLO)
Visitors: 10500

Maccabi Electra			overall		FG2			FG3			FT			Rebs					Blck		Foul
		Min	Pts	%	M	A	%	M	A	%	M	A	%	D	O	Ass	St	To	Fv	Ag	Cm	Rv	Val
4	Papaloukas, Theodoros	11:45	4	40	2	3	67	0	2	0	0	0	0	1	0	4	2	0	0	0	1	0	7
5	Hendrix, Richard	15:15	8	67	2	3	67	0	0	0	4	6	67	4	2	0	3	2	2	0	3	6	17
6	*Smith, Devin	26:00	19	58	2	4	50	5	8	63	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	1	0	0	4	1	12
7	Blu, David	22:00	11	57	1	2	50	3	5	60	0	0	0	2	0	2	1	1	1	0	3	0	10
8	*Eliyahu, Lior	21:15	14	70	7	10	70	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	17
9	*Farmar, Jordan	27:45	19	67	5	6	83	1	3	33	6	8	75	4	0	7	0	3	0	0	1	7	28
10	Pnini, Guy	19:30	8	50	1	2	50	2	4	50	0	0	0	2	0	4	0	0	0	0	2	2	11
11	Burstein, Tal	12:00	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	2	0	4	0	3	0	0	1	0	0
12	*Ohayon, Yogev	16:15	0	0	0	2	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	2	-1
14	Scheyer, Jon	03:30	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	-2
15	James, Shawn	08:45	3	100	1	1	100	0	0	0	1	1	100	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	5	1	1
21	*Schortsanitis, Sofoklis	16:00	11	50	4	8	50	0	0	0	3	5	60	5	0	1	1	1	1	0	5	5	12
	Total	200:00	97	53.7	25	42	59.5	11	25	44.0	14	20	70.0	26	3	24	8	11	4	0	27	25	112
TEAM COMPARE			overall		FG2			FG3			FT			Rebs					Blck		Foul
		Min	Pts	%	M	A	%	M	A	%	M	A	%	D	O	Ass	St	To	Fv	Ag	Cm	Rv	Val
Maccabi Electra		200:00	97	53.7	25	42	59.5	11	25	44.0	14	20	70.0	26	3	24	8	11	4	0	27	25	112
Cibona		200:00	81	40.7	15	40	37.5	9	19	47.4	24	29	82.8	25	4	16	8	14	0	4	25	26	77
Cibona			overall		FG2			FG3			FT			Rebs					Blck		Foul
		Min	Pts	%	M	A	%	M	A	%	M	A	%	D	O	Ass	St	To	Fv	Ag	Cm	Rv	Val
5	*Chase, Brian Matthew	34:00	17	40	3	5	60	1	5	20	8	8	100	4	0	6	3	3	0	0	2	5	24
6	Suton, Goran	09:45	2	17	1	6	17	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	1	1	0	0	0	1	1	0	-1
7	Zubčić, Tomislav	15:45	16	56	2	5	40	3	4	75	3	4	75	0	0	2	1	2	0	1	1	2	12
8	*Barbour, Antwain	30:00	12	33	3	9	33	1	3	33	3	4	75	6	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	3	10
9	*Rudež, Damjan	18:45	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	4	0	3	0	0	4	1	-3
12	Marčinković, Pavle	00:00	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
13	Blajić, Josip	00:00	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
15	*Lalić, Jure	13:15	7	67	1	2	50	1	1	100	2	2	100	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	5	3	6
20	*Rozić, Marin	29:45	14	56	2	5	40	3	4	75	1	1	100	2	0	1	2	2	0	2	4	2	9
22	Harper, Demonte	13:45	4	50	1	1	100	0	1	0	2	4	50	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	2	2	3
31	Žižić, Andrija	24:30	9	50	2	4	50	0	0	0	5	6	83	8	1	0	1	3	0	0	2	8	19
55	Kovačević, Hrvoje	10:30	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	-2
	Total	200:00	81	40.7	15	40	37.5	9	19	47.4	24	29	82.8	25	4	16	8	14	0	4	25	26	77
FG2, FG3 - Field Goals; FT - Free Throws; Min - Minutes; Pts - Points; M - Made; A - Attempted; Blck - Blocks; Fv - in Favoure of; Ag - Against; Foul - Foul; Cm - Committed; Rv - Received; Rebs - Rebounds; D - Defensive; O - Offensive; Ass - Assists; St - Steals; To - Turnover; Val - rank Value;

GAME MVP

MOST POINTS

MOST REBOUNDS

Jordan Farmar
	MIN	27:45	ASS	7
	PTS	19	ST	0
	FG2	83%	TO	3
	FG3	33%	BLCK	0
	FT	75%	Fcm	1
	D.REB	4	Frv	7
	O.REB	0	VAL	28

GAME MVP

MOST POINTS

MOST REBOUNDS

Devin Smith Maccabi
	MIN	26:00	ASS	0
	PTS	19	ST	0
	FG2	50%	TO	1
	FG3	63%	BLCK	0
	FT	0%	Fcm	4
	D.REB	2	Frv	1
	O.REB	0	VAL	12

GAME MVP

MOST POINTS

MOST REBOUNDS

Andrija Žižić Cibona
	MIN	24:30	ASS	0
	PTS	9	ST	1
	FG2	50%	TO	3
	FG3	0%	BLCK	0
	FT	83%	Fcm	2
	D.REB	8	Frv	8
	O.REB	1	VAL	19