Maccabi holds on against Valencia in Tel Aviv

Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv held off a late Valencia Basket scare to record a 94-91 victory on Thursday night at Menora Mivtachim Arena. Down 9 with 85 seconds remaining, Valencia rallied and had a shot to tie it in the closing seconds, but Erick Green missed from downtown and the Spanish champs dropped their seventh game in a row. Maccabi improved to 7-4 with the victory and Valencia slipped to 3-8. Pierre Jackson paced the victors with 21 points, DeShaun Thomas fired in 20 off the bench, Art Parakhouski produced 14 points on perfect shooting and Norris Cole added 12. Green finished with 24 points and 7 assists, Fernando San Emeterio scored all of his 15 points in the second half and Guillem Vives added 11 points in defeat.

While both teams scored on each of their first five possessions, four of those Valencia buckets were threes – two from Vives and one each from Will Thomas and Green – which put the visitors ahead 10-14. Parakhouski came up with the next 4 points to tie it and John DiBartolomeo hit Maccabi’s first three for a 20-18 edge. After two more lead changes, DeShaun Thomas beat the buzzer with a layup that made it 25-21 after 10 minutes. Rafa Martinez hit another Valencia three and Tibor Pleiss scored via a jumper and a layup as the visitors closed to within 29-28. Damjan Rudez buried a three that tied the score at 33-33. Jackson fed Parakhouski and then netted a triple to put Maccabi up 40-35, but after a Valencia timeout, Green responded with a four-point play. After a technical foul on Coach Spahija, Green tied it at 44-44 from the resulting free throw and he added 2 more in the closing seconds of the quarter, but Maccabi ran a play for Parakhouski, who beat the halftime buzzer with a jumper to tie the score at 46-46.

Jackson hit a three and then drew a foul shooting a three and netted the resulting free throws before Michael Roll added a floater to cap an 8-0 run. Jonah Bolden’s triple extended the margin to 9, but San Emeterio answered for Valencia from downtown. Maccabi seemed to be coasting until Tryggvi Hlinason’s put-back and a San Emeterio triple helped Valencia trim the deficit. Vives banked in a three to make it 64-63. However DeShaun Thomas’s three-point play and a Cole jumper kept the hosts ahead 69-65 through three quarters. DeShaun Thomas started the fourth with a baby hook and Cole sank a floater, which prompted a Valencia timeout. San Emeterio responded with a three-point play and Green closed the gap to 73-70. Valencia remained close behind, 79-77, thanks to a three by Aaron Doornekamp, who became the seventh Valencia man to connect from downtown. But DeShaun Thomas banked in a three and Roll sank free throws that put the hosts up 8 with three minutes remaining. The game seemed over, but Valencia never threw in the towel and a Sam Van Rossom triple made it a one-possession game, 94-91, with 13.9 seconds remaining. Then Maccabi committed a 5-second violation, but Green missed with a chance to tie it in the closing seconds.