The Ukrainian champs came from behind in the fourth quarter thanks to some defensive changes.
Late defensive effort lifted Prometey over Hapoel



It’s not often a team can allow more than 100 points and then say with a straight face that it was its defense that made the difference. However, it you watched Prometey Slobozhanske pull out a 105-113 victory over Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv on Wednesday, you understand.
It starts with recognizing the offensive capabilities of the two teams: “We played against one of the best, if not the best, offensive team in this competition,” Prometey head coach Ronen Ginzburg said of Hapoel, which is second in the EuroCup in scoring this season with 96.5 points per game. Prometey is tied for fourth (88.3 ppg.).
“In the end, I think what won us the game is, we didn’t play good defense in the first half, and in the second half, especially in the end, in the last quarter, we changed to some solutions that helped us to stop their guards,” Ginzburg concluded in the post-game press conference.
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That defense held both Xavier Munford and Will Cummings, who combined for 31 points in the first three quarters, scoreless in the fourth.
Hapoel scored 30 points in both the second and third quarters, but just 23 in the fourth. Prometey, which came into the fourth quarter down by 1, scored 7 points off of 4 Hapoel turnovers in the final stanza.
“We buckled down, turned the pressure up and got a lot more physical with them,” assessed Prometey guard Ronald March, who led all players in scoring with 27 points. “And then on offense, executed a little bit more, got the ball inside and just played together.”
In the other locker room, Coach Danny Franco expressed disappointment as Hapoel dropped its third consecutive game: “I don’t want to hang it on any kind of excuses or explanations. We need to look deep into ourselves right now. We failed as individuals first of all tonight with basic stuff.
“We weren’t good enough. Give the credit to Prometey. They played right. Unfortunately, we didn’t give them good enough competition tonight.”