Israeli hoopsters are not awed, and Lakers fail to win by 50 An hour before the big showdown between the Los Angeles Lakers and legendary Maccabi Tel Aviv, the area around the Great Western Forum in suburban Ingelwood began to take on some of the ambience of Tel Aviv's Yad Eliahu sports arena. Drivers with personalized license plates sporting such Hebrew phrases as "Ten Yad" (Give a Hand) or "Ein Sof" (Infinity) cut front of their fellow California Israelis in a scramble for the parking lot. At the entrance gates to the Forum, security guards checked purses and bags for explosives. On the court, amid dozens of folk-dancing children and the prancing, yellow-Spandex-clad Laker Girls, Israeli superstar Ofra Haza came on to belt out "Hatikvah." "Our hope has not yet perished," she sang in bell-like tones. Maccabi coach Zvika Sherf, who had earlier admitted to recurrent nightmares of losing by 50 points, did not look entirely convinced. The exhibition basketball game was engineered by Israel's consul general in Los Angeles, Ran Ronen, whose brief is to restore the country's flagging image in Southern California. "This game," he told Israeli reporters at a press conference, "has recently taken on great political significance." Indeed, one of Maccabi's first stops on arriving in town was a visit to the Stephen S. Wise Temple, where they were greetedby hundreds of cheering day-school students waving Israeli flags. In a rousing speech, Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin declared that Maccabi (the inclusion in its roster of imported players notwithstanding) was living proof of Israel's pioneer spirit.
The next day's Los Angeles Times commented that although Maccabi was thrashed 129-106, "the Lakers had to stay awake later than expected." Before Taffy Teagle sparked a fourth-quarter rout, the Israelis had come within seven points. Neither team, it was later conceded, played a sterling game. "Their lineup is so small, and our guys are so big," observed Laker coach Mike Dunleavy after the game. "So we were playing guys who are unusually quick for us." Maccabi, noted coach Sherf, dropped too many passes, missed too many layups, and devoted too much time to zone defense. "But a game like this is useful," he said. "We have some new young players, and they need experience. When you play against better teams you learn from your mistakes. Guy Goodes, 19, was guarded by Magic Johnson-when he goes against other players, he will have more confidence." Nadav Henefeld, the University of Connecticut star who suprised his many Stateside fans when he decided to come home to Maccabi this year, found the experience less than overwhelming. "We all thought it was much more than a basketball game till we got to the court," he said. When we started playing, it was just a game between two teams that wanted to win."