The instant-offense guard has shined brightest in the biggest games of the season
Antonio Blakeney is rising to the challenge for Hapoel Tel Aviv
Makale
3 Dk okuma
It takes prime-time players to win championships. And no player on Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv has risen to the challenge quite like Antonio Blakeney.
A mid-season addition with no previous experience in the BKT EuroCup, it took Blakeney time to find a consistent role with the club. Alongside a 20-point effort against Joventut Badalona in his fourth game with Hapoel and a 27-point showing against Besiktas Fibabanka Istanbul in Round 12 came three scoreless nights, including in the quarterfinals against Turk Telekom Ankara.
However, over Hapoel's last three games, no one has been better. Blakeney went off for 22 points in Game 2 of the semifinals against Valencia Basket and then erupted for 32 in the series-clincher. He opened the finals with 17 as Hapoel marched to a 74-65 victory over Dreamland Gran Canaria.
Blakeney set the tone with 10 points in the opening quarter. When asked about his strong start, Blakeney replied: "I'm just being aggressive, you know, doing what my coach is telling me to do and trying to be aggressive on the offensive end and then also play defense and do whatever it takes to win."
There were times during the season where Blakeney was on the outside of the rotation. He did not play at all in Round 15 against Buducnost VOLI Podgorica and missed his only shot in 4 minutes against Bahcesehir College Istanbul the following week. But Blakeney fought his way back into the rotation.
"I just kept working," Blakeney said after Tuesday's victory in Samokov, Bulgaria. "Obviously, it's a long season, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of moving parts. But I think the main thing that I always did was just keep working. And I kept my faith. And coach, you know, he believed in me. I kept getting better at the things he wanted me to get better at. And obviously now I'm getting more minutes."
In the buildup to the semifinals, Blakeney's increased role could already be seen coming in the Israeli League, where he moved into the starting lineup and started playing more minutes and scoring more. However, after barely playing in the EuroCup Quarterfinals, few could have predicted what was coming. One, though, who might have predicted it was his head coach.
Coach Dimitris Itoudis heaped praise on Blakeney after the latter's monster performance in Game 3 of the semifinals and explained how the scorer earned a larger role in recent weeks
"There is no behind the scenes. This is a helluva work from his side, because the players. I told him at the end, when you pass this test that we put for you. The doubts. The moments that he felt like he was neglected or was not trusted and I always kept telling him to work hard, he was waking harder and more and more," Itoudis told Israel Hayom, the rights-holder for EuroCup games in Israel.
"I have individual talks with each and everyone. At the end of the day, those minutes that he gained and the rest of the players are earned over here on the court. I am not gonna give minutes because he has this contract or his name is this or he comes from that league. He brings it to the table, he is gonna play minutes. Him and everybody else."
Blakeney has earned his minutes and everyone on the team is benefitting from it. And now with Blakeney starring alongside the likes of Johnathan Motley, Yam Madar, Marcus Foster and co., Hapoel will try to lock up the EuroCup championship on Friday on the Canary Islands.