Cassius Winston set a career high as Jerusalem relied on offense
Winston’s 35-point explosion carries Jerusalem to fourth straight win
Отчеты о матчах
3 Минутное чтение
Regular Season
Round 7 of 18
Regular Season
group a
Hapoel Midtown JerusalemJLM
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Neptunas KlaipedaNEP
group a
Overview
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Hapoel Midtown Jerusalem relied on its offense - especially a career-night from Cassius Winston - to extend its winning streak to four games in the BKT EuroCup.
Winston poured in 35 points - 20 of them coming in the final 10:25 minutes - in helping Jerusalem break away from Neptunas Klaipeda 110-93 for a 5-2 record in Group A.
“Shout-out to the coach and my teammates for the ultimate faith to go out there and be myself and just make plays for the team, whichever way I can, whether that be scoring or passing,” said Winston, who made 12 of 16 shots - 5 of 8 from long range - and 6 of 8 free throws for his 35 points.
"They give me great responsibility and I love it. In games like this, I just go out there and try my best to help the team win.”
Winston added 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal and 1 block for a PIR of 37.
“On offense, we always find a way to score. And Cassius was amazing,” said Jerusalem head coach Yonathan Alon.
Winston easily set a career mark in points and PIR in the EuroCup - his previous bests being 13 points and a PIR of 14. But the 27-year-old guard also blew away his best marks from his one season in the EuroLeague. Winston poured in 23 points for FC Bayern Munich against Maccabi Tel Aviv on December 2, 2022, and his top PIR was 28 for Bayern versus EA7 Emporio Armani Milan on October 20, 2022.
Jerusalem, as usual, got a superb showing from Jared Harper, who collected 21 points and 8 assists, while Anthony Lamb had 17 points and 8 rebounds and Austin Wiley totaled 10 points and 9 rebounds.
The issue for Alon was his defense, which gave up 56 points in the first half and then allowed 27 points in the third quarter before finally stepping up in the fourth quarter with 10 points.
“My players decided they only wanted to play defense for 14 minutes,” Alon said. “We need to learn from this. Not every game will be like this. But we have the character and we find the way to win. So I am happy about it.”
The feelings were the same for his Neptunas counterpart Gediminas Petrauskas.
“The bench in the end probably got tired. We had some injuries today. I am really happy with the offense. Ninety-three points was good, but unfortunately, on defense, we could not get the stops,” the Neptunas playcaller said.
Neptunas was without leader Arnas Velicka and center James Karnik, who recently left the club, but it still managed to build a 14-point lead in the third quarter, going ahead 64-78 after a 2-13 run.
Jerusalem eventually wore down Neptunas with a 17-0 run spanning the final two quarters, with Winston accounting for 12 points in the decisive run.
Neptunas was unable to win a fourth straight game and fell to 3-4 despite Zane Waterman (18 points) and Arnas Berucka (17) both setting career highs in points in the loss.
