Hapoel had to get a little bit out of character to pull out a hard-fought win and move into the semifinals
Defense, boards, belief and unity fueled Hapoel

In three years since joining BKT EuroCup, Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv had never won a game in which it scored fewer than 76 points, but managed to so on Wednesday when it mattered most. Hapoel fought hard for a 67-61 victory over Turk Telekom Ankara in a one-and-done quarterfinal clash that saw Hapoel reach the semifinals of the competition for the first time.
“This is what playoff basketball is about,” said Marcus Foster, Hapoel’s leader in the game with 21 points and 8 rebounds. “Sometimes it’s not got to be pretty, so you just have to find your way to win.”
Hapoel came into the quarterfinals as the third-best scoring team, having averaged 88.8 points per game during the regular season. But on Wednesday night the offense struggled.
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In the first half, Hapoel scored just 28 points, which was its lowest-scoring half in any EuroCup game. But the team still led by 2.
By the end of the night, Hapoel only had 67 points on its tally, its second-worst scoring performance in three EuroCup season. But the team still managed to pull out a win.
"Defense is what won the game,” said Oz Blayzer, who played 17 minutes, which is 10 more than his season average, due to team captain Tomer Ginat not being able to go in the second half.
“We came committed to our game plan. We kept them to a low score but we also didn’t score much. In the end, we made the correct plays,” Blazer said.
The way Hapoel had done the job was the dominance on the offensive glass. Hapoel pulled down 18 offensive board to just 3 by Turk Telekom.
What’s more, all 3 of those offensive board Turk Telekom grabbed in the first quarter.
That’s not all the damage that Hapoel’s defense has done. The Coach Dimitris Itoudis team has allowed only 3 field goals in each the second and third quarter. So, even though the offense was not clicking, the defense was there to step up.
“[Key] was the belief,” Itoudis said. “Trust to the unity, the locker room is healthy. Players are together. They are ready to accept criticism, and they are ready to fight.”
And fought they did. For a place in the semifinals, for the first time in club history.