Hapoel Jerusalem woke up this morning (Friday) to a familiar, new-old reality, as the holder of the State Cup for the 2023/24 season, after beating Maccabi Tel Aviv 72:85 at the Menorah Mvittaim Hall and hoisting the eighth cup in its history. Throughout its history, Hapoel Jerusalem has won eight state cups, with all previous wins coming in pairs of consecutive years – 1996/7, 2007/8 and 2019/20. History continued and was not broken even last night when the holder of the cup retained her title and added the cup of the year 2024 to her cabinet of titles at the expense of the sworn rival.
After a first half in yellow control, the Jerusalemites came out of the locker room like the muzzle of a cannon and thanks to a dominant and one-sided third quarter of 31:10 in their favor, a nine-point deficit at halftime turned into a 15-point lead in the middle of the fourth quarter, sending four thousand reds in the stands to celebrate all the way to Jerusalem.
The outburst of joy and happiness of the fans in the stands and the players on the floor and in the dressing room was hard to miss and the smiles on the players’ faces told a little about how much the season had passed since the outbreak of the war, the departure of Aleksandar Džikić and the dismissal of Ilias Kantsouris. Yonatan Alon’s apprentices went through a difficult season with ups and downs but knew how to excel at the moment of truth, dominated the second half of the final without question and won the coveted title.
The spontaneous celebrations on the field and in the dressing room then moved to a restaurant in the Nachalat Binyamin pedestrian mall, where the players celebrated with the team and fans until the wee hours of the night, not before the team bus was surrounded by dozens of happy fans who celebrated with their heroes and accompanied the bus on its way out of the field.
“An amazing feeling, we went through a lot of things and difficulties this season, but despite everything, we managed to show up at the right moment and achieve the victory”, Chris Johnson shared his feelings in a conversation with “Israel Today” at the end. “We have a very good group of people and all along the way they stayed together and we believed we could do it, we have a very good group here with a lot of talent. This trophy is very significant for us and for Hapoel Jerusalem, the country in war and we were able to give our fans a good reason to rejoice a little” .
Jacory Williams, who led the list of scorers for the Reds with 21 points, shared his feelings at the end in a conversation with Israel Hayom. “It’s a big win for us, I know they did it last season too and this time I’m glad I got to experience it with them. I feel we deserved the title and we deserved it. I had a very good game but all the credit should go to my friends, they knew how to find me”.
Despite the joy in the club and the players also made sure to mention that this is only the first title of the season and they do not intend to stop there. “In basketball everything is possible, with this group of people and the professional team everything is possible and we can win the championship and take a double,” concluded Johnson.
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