The home team’s versatile guard scored on the final buzzer with a superb jump shot to seal the deal
Jimmy Clark steps up in crunch time as Maccabi edges Partizan
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 26 of 38
Regular Season
Maccabi Rapyd Tel AvivMTA
9593
Partizan Mozzart Bet BelgradePAR
Overview
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Maccabi Rapyd Tel Aviv celebrated a thrilling 95-93 home win over Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade after Jimmy Clark settled the contest with a buzzer-beating jump shot that hit nothing but net and sparked wild celebrations inside Menora Mivtachim Arena on Tuesday.
With just four seconds left and the score tied, Clark received an inbound pass and then pump faked a three-pointer, going up and under Isaac Bonga before unleashing an off-balanced shot from just inside the arc to give Maccabi a hard-fought win.
The home team, which trailed throughout the second half and was also on the back foot for long spells in the first, improved to 11-15 to keep alive its slim hopes of reaching the postseason while Partizan dropped to 8-18 after losing nine of its last 11.
Clark and former Partizan guard Iffe Lundberg both netted a game-high 21 points, the latter pouring in 16 in the first half to keep Maccabi afloat after the visitors produced a 0-11 run to take a 35-36 lead, before holding on for a 48-50 advantage at halftime on the back of 14 points from Dylan Osetkowski.
Sterling Brown netted 11 of his 19 points for Partizan in the third quarter as the visitors headed into the last 10 minutes of the contest 72-77 up, while big man Bruno Fernando racked up 17 points and 7 boards, seemingly forcing overtime when he sank a pair of free throws with just a few seconds left on the clock. However, the livewire Clark stepped up big time and sent the Maccabi fans wild.
“I had confidence out there thanks to my teammates and the coach, they trusted me with that last shot,” a calm and composed Clark said in his postgame comments. “They gave me the ball and I just thank God for it. We’re trying to build on what we have and looking to get better every day,” he added.
The home team’s head coach Oded Kattash said there was no masterplan for the game-winning play except to get the ball into Clark’s hands. “We just wanted to inbound the ball and the rest was on Jimmy,” he said. “We came out flat in the first half and I didn’t like the way we played. We reacted in the second even though we were struggling and we played against a very good team. We found a way to win and we couldn’t have done it without this amazing crowd.”
Often reduced to a peripheral role at Partizan last season, Lundberg came back with a vengeance to haunt his former club and hurt the Serbian team with effervescent shooting, netting 6-of-7 from inside and 3-of-6 from downtown as he also dished out 5 assists and collected 4 rebounds. Marcio Santos chipped in with 17 points for Maccabi and Roman Sorkin added 10, while Bonga posted 14 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists at the other end with Cam Payne amassing 11 and 6 assists.
However, Payne shot only 2-of-10 from downtown and missed some crunch three-point shots when the chips were down as Clark netted a pair of successive baskets at the other end to draw praise from Lundberg.
“We were resilient throughout the second half after surviving the first,” the Danish sharpshooter said. “We limited their second chances and found the energy and then Jimmy stepped up big in the last quarter. This is his moment and I am very proud of him, congrats to him first of all but also to the rest of the team. Once in a while you need a little bit of luck and I am just happy that we won tonight.”
Partizan head coach Joan Penarroya succinctly summed up his team’s defeat, having seen overtime slip away from his grasp in a dramatic climax to the contest. “Congratulations to both Maccabi and to my own players. I think we deserved more today than the loss we suffered, but they scored from all the important situations in the last minute and we missed the important shots.”
