The former Valencia star scored 7 points in the last 130 seconds
Chris Jones shines late to lift Hapoel in his return to Valencia
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 4 of 38
Regular Season
Valencia BasketVBC
93100
Hapoel IBI Tel AvivHTA
Overview
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After three years wearing a Valencia Basket jersey, Chris Jones rode into town on Wednesday and stood tall at the end to lift his new team, Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv, to an impressive 93-100 road win. Hapoel never trailed, but Valencia was hot on its heels in the closing minutes.
The visitors led 77-91 when Valencia caught fire with consecutive three-pointers from Omari Moore, Kameron Taylor, Sergio De Larea and Moore again to get back in the game. Matt Costello went to the line with a chance to tie it with 2:31 remaining, but split his shots to cap a 13-0 run.
Then it was time for Jones to shine. He took a pass from Vasilije Micic and drained a three from the corner. Then Jones raced downcourt and intercepted a pass from Costello. Jones went on to score Hapoel's next 4 points – with a layup and 2 free throws – to maintain a two-possession lead despite free throws by Moore.
Jones finished the game 14 points, 8 assists and 3 steals, which were all season highs. Vasilije Micic paced the Hapoel attack with 24 points and 6 assists, Antonio Blakeney added 17 points on 5-of-8 three-point shooting and Elijah Bryant contributed 16 points and 6 rebounds.
It wasn't the first time Jones had a big role in a game between these teams in Valencia. Last season, he started and helped Valencia win the opening game of the best-of-three BKT EuroCup Semifinals against Hapoel. But after Hapoel evened the series, Jones missed the deciding game due to injury and Hapoel won the game, series and – eventually – the EuroCup.
"It was a good game. We came in, it was a little tough situation, not playing without the crowd, but I feel like the guys handled it well," Jones said after the game. "Of course, teams make runs, but we fought through that adversity and came out with the win."
While Hapoel has eight players on the roster from last season's EuroCup championship, it is largely a new team. Two of those returnees, Yam Madar and Bruno Caboclo, are sidelined with injuries, while the three biggest contributors against Valencia in terms of PIR – Micic, Bryant and Jones – are among the slew of newcomers.
Micic was the team's biggest offseason signing and he said after the game that he feels like "a rookie."
"To be honest, I don't know how to describe our basketball right now," Micic said. "We've won three times, but probably this win covers the real picture… We want to get better every day. I hope today we will learn a little bit about ourselves because it's just a poor game, but no much time to to cry, and hopefully we can maintain winning, but also we need to get better as a team.
"Sometimes I have good nights, sometimes I don't, but I'm trying. Also, as I said always, for me, every game is like a final because I came back (from the NBA). I want to play. I want to fight for my position again. I feel like a rookie. So tonight it was, it was better than previous (games)."
Coach Dimitris Itoudis addressed the fact that Hapoel is still a work in progress in the post-game press conference saying: "Another win in the marathon. It’s important for us that we bounced back as a team, we bounced back after a not-so-good performance that we had in the previous game (against archrival Maccabi Rapyd Tel Aviv). And we’re looking forward to getting to know each other because we are in the process of becoming a real team. Still we are trying to connect the pieces together."
All of that is not a great sign for Hapoel's future opponents. The team is an offensive dynamo, averaging 95.0 points per game heading into Friday’s showdown against Paris Basketball in the French capital. And if Coach Itoudis does get all the pieces to fit together, it will spell trouble for EuroLeague defenses everywhere.
