The league leader was forced to dig deep after trailing by 12 points and shooting poorly from long range
Hapoel battles through adversity to down hard-fighting ASVEL
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 22 of 38
Regular Season
LDLC ASVEL VilleurbanneASV
7381
Hapoel IBI Tel AvivHTA
Overview
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Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv ground out a workmanlike 73-81 win at LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne on Friday to stay top of the EuroLeague standings on a 15-6 record after overcoming a 12-point deficit early in the second half as the hosts had threatened to stage an upset.
ASVEL, which dropped to 6-16, led 38-31 at halftime and then 45-33 early in the third quarter, with Hapoel missing its opening eight shots from downtown and struggling on offense against a physical French outfit whose aggressive defense paid dividends for long spells.
Having conjured a 15-2 run to take a double-digit lead, the hosts then saw their offense gradually grind to a halt while Hapoel started firing on all cylinders at the other end, as player of the game Elijah Bryant and Dan Oturu came up big when it mattered for the visiting team.
The Israeli side surged 70-77 ahead in the home straight and eventually ran out a comfortable winner as Bryant sank 17 points to go with 6 assists, hitting 8-of-9 from inside. A clinical 7-of-8 from the floor coupled with 4-of-5 from the line saw Oturu rack up a game-high 18 points and 7 boards. Hapoel finished on 3-of-15 from downtown but two of those clutch three-pointers came in quick succession when the chips were down and the visitors were on the ascendancy.
The aggressive approach saw both sides commit more turnovers than assists as the manner of Hapoel’s victory was by no means pretty, but the visiting team’s industrious and highly efficient approach once again ground out a result which had head coach Dimitris Itoudis heaping praise on his men.
“Congratulations to my team. We had to change things drastically at halftime as we wanted to be precise on what we were doing offensively,” the Greek tactician said in his postgame comments. “We never lost faith in what we were doing as a team even though we were down by 12. The team reacted and I appreciate that.”
The effervescent Bryant did the lion’s share of his talking on the court and acknowledged postgame that Hapoel was forced to dig deep to turn the tide, as ASVEL looked capable of staging an upset for three and a half quarters of the rugged matchup.
“We got stops in the second half against a very talented ASVEL team,” said Bryant. ”Our defense set the tone and we now have to focus on getting better every single day.”
Glynn Watson paced ASVEL on 17 points and Shaquille Harrison added 14, but the home team didn’t have enough left in the tank for a grueling climax to the game as Hapoel closed shop. The French side’s head coach Pierric Poupet was disappointed but also proud of his men’s die-hard attitude which kept Hapoel in check for much of the contest.
“They were better than us and showed more talent in the end,” Poupet said. “It’s killing us to lose like this hut overall we showed a lot of good things, so heads up and keep working for the next game coming up.”
