Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv improved to 5-1 with the 85-77 victory
Micic and Motley’s crew downed Monaco
Отчеты о матчах
3 Минутное чтение
Regular Season
Round 6 of 38
Regular Season
Hapoel IBI Tel AvivHTA
8577
AS MonacoASM
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EuroLeague debutant? Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv continued to look like a seasoned title contender by holding off last season’s finalist AS Monaco with an 85-77 victory on Thursday night, keeping the Israeli team at the top of the standings with a 5-1 record.
And although it was a strong team effort, as five different players scored in double digits, Hapoel leaned most heavily on two players who respectively dominated the backcourt in the first quarter and the paint in the fourth: Vasilije Micic and Johnathan Motley.
Hapoel headed into the game boasting the highest-scoring offense in the EuroLeague, averaging 93.8 points across the first five games. Maintaining those standards against Monaco’s stingy defense – statistically the third-best in the league at the start of the week – didn’t look easy, but Coach Dimitris Itoudis’s team started off with another impressive demonstration of its scoring power.
Inevitably, former EuroLeague MVP Micic was at the heart of everything, dishing a pair of assists inside the opening minute and then netting 7 points himself before the first quarter’s midway point. Dan Oturu also impressed by scoring 7 points in those early exchanges, while Collin Malcolm demonstrated another facet of Hapoel’s offense by draining a trio of triples for a 27-18 advantage at the end of the first quarter.
But then Monaco stiffened its resolve, allowing just 35 points in the next two quarters to gradually take control of the game. The visiting team edged ahead towards the end of the third as Daniel Theis, Elie Okobo and the irrepressible Mike James provided scoring punch, and the early stages of the fourth quarter saw seven lead changes as the two teams traded blows.
Then Motley took over, scoring 11 points in just over 5 minutes and sending his team into an 80-75 lead. The big man then had an impact at the other end, coming out to the perimeter to block a shot from James. That allowed Elijah Bryant to convert a pair of free throws, followed by Micic rattling home his fourth triple of the night to secure the victory.
Motley finished with 17 points on 8-of-9 two-point shooting, with five of his scores coming from coolly converted mid-range shots as the Monaco defense concentrated on preventing him from attacking the rim.
“I knew they were playing drop a little bit,” he explained to EuroLeague.TV after the game. “So I wanted to shoot some jumpers and take advantage of the space they were giving me.”
That scoring explosion from Motley coincided with excellent defense at the other end of the floor, with Monaco held to just 14 fourth-quarter points. And aside from netting 29 points in a third quarter that it dominated, the Roca Team was very well contained throughout the other 30 minutes by Hapoel – a point not lost upon Micic as he reflected on the win.
“We played really clever in those last 5 minutes in terms of defense – we knew exactly how to defend their main weapons,” said the Serbian star. “As we all know, Mike [James] is very tough and Mirotic very experienced. So we were ready, and then offensively we made the shots.”
Motley echoed those sentiments, adding that Hapoel was particularly motivated to tighten up defensively after allowing an average of 94.7 points over its last three games.
“We weren’t happy with our defense,” admitted the center. “So we went to the film room, figured out some things we could do better, and tonight we did a really good job.”
That combination of effective offense and improved defense added up to Hapoel’s fifth win of a remarkable start to the season, but Coach Itoudis warned his players that there’s still a lot of work to do.
“We didn’t lose our faith. Even when they took over, we were composed,” he said. “I’m happy that we’re in the process of becoming a real team. That will not make us relaxed – on the contrary, we’ve got to build on it.”
With Micic and Motley as the foundation stones, there’s certainly a lot to build upon.
