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Tel Aviv Wins First Euroleague Semifinals

Maccabi Tel Aviv beats Olympiacos in the Euroleague semifinal series opening a 1-0 lead. Maccabi Tel Aviv`s Nikola Vujcic recovered from injury and pushed Tel Aviv to their 87-78 win, providing his team with 23 points. Vujcic showed great post injury performance, hit 9 of 12 from the field, and added seven rebounds, five assists, four steals and two blocks. Maceo Baston added 15 points, Will Solomon answered his critics with 12 and Tal Burstein added 11 points, including three triples.

"Winning the first game is important and winning by nine is nice, but Thursday will be a different ball game. It won`t be easy, the atmosphere in Greece will be tough" said Vujcic, who sustained a back injury in Maccabi`s Top 16 encounter with Ulker. "Vujcic killed us today," said Olympiacos guard Tyus Edney. He made a few important baskets that killed the game off for us. We haven`t given up though and if we play well in Greece we can level the series."

In the other quarterfinal games CSKA Moscow downed visiting Efes Pilsen 66-57 thanks to 19 points, including five triples from J.R. Holden. Panathinaikos defeated Tau Vitoria 84-72 as Mike Batiste scored 15 points and Vasilis Spanoulis and Dejan Tomasevic added 13 each. Barcelona defeated Real Madrid 72-58 in an all-Spanish match-up. Shammond Williams hit 23 points for the winners.