Hapoel Tel Aviv defeated Real Madrid 76-69 as Elijah Bryant starred in a backs against the wall game three win to keep the Reds alive to cut their Euroleague quarterfinal series to 2-1 and setting up game four this coming Thursday night back at their home away from home in Bulgaria.

Los Blancos grabbed an early lead with Facundo Campazzo and Gabriel Deck orchestrating the offense but Chris Jones and Elijah Bryant cut the advantage down to 36-34 by the half. Vasilije Micic began to make an impact but so did Trey Lyles at the other end, however, Bryant and Jones along with Antionio Blakeney and Dan Oturu helped Dimitrios Itoudis’s team take the lead for good as they went on to close out the victory.

Bryant and Jones each scored 19 points while Micic added 13 points in the win as Lyles scored 14 points, Deck put in 11 points and Campazzo scored 10 points in the loss.

Hapoel Tel Aviv Head Coach Dimitrios Itoudis looked back at the win while also speaking about Elijah Bryant making the Euroleague Team of the Season, “I want to congratulate my team to go to 2-1 in the series and Elijah for winning the award, his teammates and the entire club to facilitate the award makes us happy and proud to have him with us. It was a do or die situation for us against a great team and even though we were down by ten points we found the right chemistry and dug all the way into the bench and Kessler Edwards brought what we needed. We won the rebounding battle and keeping Real Madrid at 69 points says a lot. We played like a playoff team.”

Real Madrid Head Coach Sergio Scariolo spoke about the defeat, “Defensively we were not great, but we were ok. It’s almost impossible to beat one of the top teams in the competition five times, but we came close. Congrats to Hapoel and now we move on to try and win the series in four games.”

Before the game began, Elijah Bryant received an individual award as part of his selection to the Euroleague Team of the Season, however, the prize didn’t help the reds get off to a good start as Real Madrid took a quick 7-0 lead before Hapoel scored their first field goal.

The visitors continued to rely on their efficient shooting from beyond the arc, as Facundo Campazzo, Andres Feliz, Gabriel Deck and Trey Lyles all went from deep, but Jonathan Motley came off the bench and provided a boost to close the gap to 21-18 by the end of the first quarter.

Usman Garuba and Deck increased the lead to double digits as the second quarter got underway, but points from Chris Jones and Elijah Bryant who scored at will began to chip away at the advantage and went into halftime down by only a pair of points, 36-34.

Vasilije Micic started to heat up to begin the third quarter while Bryant and Jones kept finding the bottom of the basket as the reds went on a 16-0 run and headed into the final frame holding a 55-46 lead. Lyles and Deck started mount a fourth quarter comeback and got to within a point, 59-58 but from that moment on it was all Hapoel as Antonio Blakeney, Dan Oturu and Bryant all scored to wrap up the victory.