Regular Season
Round 14 of 18
Regular Season
group b
Hapoel Vegan Friendly Tel AvivHTA
9270
Gran CanariaGCA
group b
Overview
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Hapoel demolishes Gran Canaria 92-70
Game Report
3 Mins read
Hapoel Vegan Friendly Tel Aviv extended its winning streak to seven games by defeating visiting Group B leader Gran Canaria 92-70 at Shlomo Group Arena on Wednesday night. The hosts dominated from the very beginning, amassing a 26-7 lead in the first 9 minutes that the visitors could never threaten. Hapoel improved to 10-4 to get closer to Gran Canaria’s 11-3 and also won the head-to-head tiebreaker between them.
Jordan McRae led all scorers with 25 points, to which he added 4 assists, 4 rebounds and 3 steals for a PIR of 31. Xavier Munford followed with 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting from the field, J’Covan Brown tallied a double-double of 11 points and 14 assist and Chinanu Oniaku neared another of his own with 15 points and 9 boards. John Shurna scored 16 points and Aleksander Balcerowski added 12 for the losing team.
The hosts managed to slow down Gran Canaria’s offense in the early going, allowing just 2 points in the first 4 minutes to build a 11-2 edge that forced a first timeout by the visitors. The stoppage didn’t work for Gran Canaria, though, as Brown joined Onuaku and McRae to raise the difference to 20-4 soon after. Bar Timor made it 26-7 with a couple of free throws, but a 0-5 run by the visitors closed the first period with a score of 26-14.
The visitors found some relief from behind the arc and trimmed the deficit to 31-21 as Hapoel returned its starting backcourt to the floor to try to stop the rally. With Brown and McRae running the show in offense, Hapoel soon regained a comfortable margin, 43-26, as Gran Canaria could only score from the free-throw line. 5 points in a row by Shurna avoided a more painful punishment for the visitors at halftime, which the score 47-31.
Game Videos
Things didn’t improve much for Gran Canaria after the break. It needed more than 4 minutes to score, allowing the hosts to escape to 55-31. The visitors tried to cut the deficit with rotations and looking for some scoring from the three-point line, but nothing seemed to work as planned and Hapoel kept increasing the difference boosted by McRae, to get to 30-point margin, 69-39, late in the third period. Shurna and Ferran Bassas came to the rescue and improved Gran Canaria’s offensive performance, but it was just merbromin for a seriously wounded team that trailed 70-47 entering the last stanza.
Munford led the offense for Hapoel early in the final period to cancel Miquel Salvo’s effort on the other side. A fastbreak layup by the former established a 79-54 difference with 7 minutes remaining. Salvo kept fueling Gran Canaria and helped his team reduce the margin to 81-63 midway through the fourth quarter. The comeback attempt didn’t go further, though, as Onuaku showed up again on offense and the visitors decided to give some minutes to bench players like David Mutaf and Ruben Lopez, waiving the white flag with 4 minutes to go.
