Basketball / Euroleague / With Sherf back, TA is reborn

Maccabi Tel Aviv yesterday got off to a dream start under the tutelage of returning coach Zvika Sherf by beating Efes Pilsen 83-68 in their Euroleague game in Istanbul.

Terence Morris was Tel Aviv's most valuable player of the night, scoring 16 points and taking 19 rebounds. He played the entire game without resting on the bench.

Uruguayan Esteban Batista also stood out, scoring nine points, taking seven rebounds and, most importantly, providing excellent defensive coverage in the paint.

The first quarter almost ended in disaster for Maccabi when Pilsen took a nine-point lead toward its end. Coach Sherf, however, called a timeout and when Maccabi returned to the court, it cut into Pilsen's advantage. Will Bynum even nailed a magnificent mid-court shot with the buzzer.

In the second quarter, Maccabi Tel Aviv continued to have the hot hands, with important points scored by Yotam Halperin and Morris.

Maccabi went on a seven-point run to open the second quarter, taking a 29-23 lead, while on the defensive end, Tel Aviv was simply dominating, as the Turkish club had only 29 points with 2:44 left in the first half.

Alex Garcia made a spectacular three-point shot, but overall Maccabi was abysmal on three-point attempts, going just 3-for-12.

In the third quarter, Maccabi continued to increase its lead, but the game was far from over: A slam dunk by Kenny Gregory awakened his team, which got within eight points of Maccabi.

But Efes' comeback was short-lived: The last quarter of the game was dominated by the Israeli team. Fizer came off the bench and contributed to the effort that kept the Turkish club at bay.

At the end of the game, Sherf said he was "very happy with the result."

"This game will give us confidence and make training fun, but we cannot be pleased, there's still a lot of work to do. We changed a number of things on the defensive and offensive ends."

Club owner and businessman David Federman also said he was happy with the team's performance and that it had been through a tough week.

"I'm happy players showed they have soul," he said. "Zvika did it well and I'm happy for him."