The Lithuanian team got back to winning ways after coming close to a competition record
Three-point blitz helped Wolves to big win
Article
3 Mins read
After losing two consecutive games to end the momentum of a previous five-game winning streak, the opening stages of Wednesday’s home meeting with Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv suggested it would be another rough night for Wolves Twinsbet Vilnius.
The visiting team’s offense was firing on all cylinders in the opening exchanges, as Hapoel scored 8 of its first 9 field goal attempts to hold a series of double-digit leads, with the highest difference reaching 13 points at 14-27.
Wolves, though, was shooting with incredible accuracy from long-range at the other end, keeping itself in the game by making 12 of its 19 three-point attempts in the first half – with multiple triples coming from the unstoppable Anthony Cowan, Andrew Andrews and Tre’Shawn Thurman.
Thanks to those long bombs a breathless first half ended with Hapoel leading by just 2 points (56-58), but if the fans were hoping for a similarly high-scoring second half they would be disappointed. As Wolves coach Alessandro Magro told Euroleague TV before the second half got underway: “I think we should start to play some defense. Games like this are very interesting for the fans, but not the coaches.”
Magro got his wish. Wolves seriously tightened up its defense after the break, playing with much more physicality to pull back Hapoel’s powerful offense from 58 first-half points to 42 in the third and fourth quarters.
Meanwhile, the home team shooters kept on shooting. Wolves drained another 7 triples in the second half to finish with 19 conversions on 36 attempts, with Cowan (5-of-8), Thurman (5-of-8) and Andrews (4-of-6) accounting for 14 of those. Arnoldas Kulboka also contributed with 3 triples on 6 attempts.
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Three-point shooting wasn’t the only factor in deciding the outcome, with the home team grabbing more rebounds than Hapoel (28 to 26), including 12 at the offensive end, committing fewer turnovers (13 to 15) and showing good accuracy from the foul line to make 21 of 26 free throws.
But it’s clear that Wolves’s long-range excellence was the most important reason for the triumph, as coach Magro admitted: “We were able to make some crazy, crazy shots, which was very important to stay in the game.”
And his opposite number Dimitris Itoudis agreed, ruefully noting: “They were very hot. We couldn’t manage to contain their drive and kick game, their isolation game. So they hit a lot of threes that we had to contain, but we didn’t.”