The champs held on to top the league-leaders
Defense dominated offense as Fenerbahce downed Hapoel
Informes de partidos
3 Min lectura
Regular Season
Round 11 of 38
Regular Season
Fenerbahce Beko IstanbulFBB
7468
Hapoel IBI Tel AvivHTA
Overview
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Thursday’s Round 11 showdown between reigning champ Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul and league leader Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv was always likely to provide a clash of styles, with the Turkish team’s organised and intense defense facing the high-octane and varied offense of former coach Dimitris Itoudis’s men.
The scoreline makes it clear which approach prevailed, as Fenerbahce rolled to a third successive victory with a disciplined performance that limited the usually high-scoring visitors to just 26 field goal conversions on the way to a 74-68 victory.
Hapoel came into the game with a league-best average of 93.2 points per game, ranking second in both two-point shooting (59.7%) and from beyond the arc (41%), and coming off a season-high 114 points in a thrilling win over Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz just two days earlier.
But that wouldn’t happen this time as, right from the beginning, it became the slow-paced, low-tempo kind of game that best suited Fenerbahce, with both teams failing to score any points in the first 3 minutes as defenses dominated.
There were occasional glimpses of Hapoel’s offensive capability, with Elijah Bryant nailing a three-pointer and Johnathan Motley adding a trademark mid-range strike, but on the whole, it was a low-scoring first quarter with the teams combining for just 10 field goal conversions on 32 attempts.
It stayed that way for the start of the second quarter, with neither team managing a field goal for nearly 4 minutes as the scoreboard was only bothered by a small trickle of free throws. And the same pattern stayed in place for the remainder of the first half, which ended with Hapoel edging a 27-28 lead.
Eventually Fenerbahce’s high-quality defense had its reward at the other end with similarly productive offense, after the switch was flicked at the start of the third quarter: Tarik Biberovic and Onuralp Bitim both struck three-pointers while Talen Horton-Tucker scored twice inside during a 14-2 run over the course of less than 5 minutes, giving the Turkish team a double-digit advantage and a degree of control.
Back-to-back three-pointers from Bonzie Colson then kept the home team rolling with a 10-point lead heading into the final period, and although Hapoel threatened to fight back with a burst of scoring from Bryant and Vasilije Micic, Fener’s defense again came to the fore by holding the visitor scoreless for the final 2 minutes.
The Turkish team’s leading scorer on the night was Horton-Tucker with 15 points, and he admitted the game plan was focused on defensive effort.
“Coach told us we had to come out and be physical,” he told EuroLeague.TV. “We had to play with grit and physicality. Being able to stay physical with them and try to stop them – we know they’re a high-scoring team, so being able to play defense to a high level and stop them was the most important thing and we did that.”
Fenerbahce fans also certainly played their part in a game that had been relocated to Munich but still felt very much like a home game for the Turkish team, considering the large and vocal support they received inside the SAP Garden.
And Horton-Tucker was grateful for that backing, which was also evident in Tuesday’s win over Maccabi, saying: “We miss our fans in Istanbul, but the fans here in Munich were amazing. They gave us a lot of energy and I’m happy we pulled off a double week.”
With three straight wins, Fenerbahce’s early-season troubles appear to be a thing of the past, and the reigning champion is preparing to mount another serious title assault.
