Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv carried a strong first half to a clear victory over Gran Canaria.
Hapoel's defense caught up with offense in important statement win



Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv has been known this season as an offensive machine, but the Israeli team cranked up its defense to grab an important statement win over Dreamland Gran Canaria in the fight for a top-two spot in Group B.
Hapoel used a dominant first-half performance in collecting a 64-87 victory at Gran Canaria to improve to 8-5 in the group - just one win behind Gran Canaria with the tiebreak advantage thanks to two wins.
Hapoel took the first half 25-51 thanks to shooting a blistering 82.6% on two-pointers - a result which also was Gran Canaria’s worst-ever halftime deficit, topping the club’s 49-24 first half against ALBA Berlin during the 2015-16 season.
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"Our performance in the first half was really dominant at both ends. Defensively we were able to keep them really low and we were scoring 82% on twos and in general, we had a good flow to the game. We tried to follow the game plan and try to take advantage of their weaknesses,” Hapoel coach Dimitris Itoudis said.
"This is a team that has a good half-court offense but they get a lot in their open court. The fact that we did not allow easy points gave us a boost. In the second half, we had our problems. It was evident they were trying to come back. But overall, we were good in this road game.”
Tel Aviv came into the game ranked second in index rating (105.6) and third in scoring (89.0 ppg) as well as second in assists (21.3) and first in two-point shooting (62.3%). The road team was close in all those stats against Gran Canaria: 113 PIR, 87 points, 19 assists and 67.6% on two-pointers.
That fact was impressive considering Gran Canaria ranked second defensively in PIR (73.4) and scoring (73.1 ppg) as well as first in fewest assists (15.0) and lowest two-point shooting (50.5%).
But Hapoel’s defensive stance was a welcome sight, considering the team had given up 104 and 101 points in its last two games. The team came into the game ranked sixth in defensive scoring at 81.4 ppg.
Itoudis said the game provided numerous good points as the team builds toward the title contender it hopes to be. He liked the fact that his players remained locked in throughout. One player he singled out was Antonio Blakeney.
After scoring 27 points against Besiktas Fibabanka Istanbul, Blakeney did not enter the game until there were 9 minutes remaining. He proceeded to pour in 13 points to go with 4 rebounds.