Hapoel Jerusalem has got to be concerned with a brutal second half against Bnei Herzliya in a 83-66 loss. Forget about how poorly the Reds looked offensively, it was the defensive side of the game that was even more worrying as Aleksander Dzikic’s team allowed the hosts to slice and dice towards the basket time and time again. Oren Aharoni’s squad outscored Jerusalem 54-30 over the final two quarters as Herzliya did as they absolutely pleased with Chris Babb and Quinton Hooker leading the way in the win.

Herzliya 55 points in the paint and it was as if Jerusalem just let the home team waltz right through the paint as they made no effort to stop them. No fouls, no defense, no nothing.

As Dzikic said following the game, “We allowed straight line drives and that shouldn’t happen.” That’s for sure, he must have been horrified as each white jersey just did as they pleased when they saw the lane wide open.

What really broke the game open for Aharoni was brand new recruit Julian Gamble who Hooker looked to get the ball to early and often in the third quarter. Once the big man got the ball inside and scored a couple of easy buckets, Herzliya was able to use him as a decoy as he moved a bit outside of the paint puling some of the Jerusalem defenders with him and leaving the key empty for Hooker, Babb and the rest of the home team to go in for easy layups.

It’s not every day that a player of Gamble’s stature lands in Israel and Herzliya will most definitely find a way to maximize his presence as he replaces an injured Robert Carter as well as last year’s league MVP Chinanu Onuaku.

Gamble is your traditional big man with very soft hands who can play with his back to the basket and cause havoc for any interior defense which is what he did in only 12 minutes of action in his debut outing.

“There’s no question that Julian gives us something different,” Aharoni said. “That is something that we didn’t have beforehand and he can play with his back to the basket. He’s still not in shape but he gave us a lot of looks and that’s very important. The team had a bit of a different look with Carter and we had to make a change and adjust of the way the team plays over the past few days to get the most out of a player like Gamble.”

Hooker, who connected very nicely with Gamble in that third quarter and communicated with him efficiently with his eyes (the press row is right on top of the court and I was able to see this clearly) was very happy to be able to take advantage of the team’s new big man.

“That space and having that experience down low is key for us but it also was kind of getting into rhythm. The first half we didn’t have that, but in the second half we started scoring around the rim and making 3-pointers as well as kicking the ball out really helped us.”

For Jerusalem, Mareks Mejeiris looked down in the dumps following the loss and seemed very concerned with the lack of cohesion that his team showed as they move to 0-2 in the Israeli League.

“The second half things didn’t go our way,” the forward said. “We are a newly assembled team and maybe that caused part of the breakdown. It was everything (that were issues), we were hesitant and we were overthinking. For me we just have to practice more together and know each others strengths and weaknesses, to know each other more as a team.”

What Mejeiris said could be true, however, the effort that Jerusalem showed in the second half was not due to a lack of playing with one another and that should be very, very concerning fro the Reds and their coach.

The other issue that came right to the forefront in the loss for Jerusalem was the lack of having a player that could take the bull by the horns instead of a bullpen by committee so to speak.

Herzliya has a player like Chris Babb who can just take over a game and lead his team to victory whereas Jerusalem just doesn’t seem to have a player that can do that and that is a very important missing ingredient. You can go just so far with drive and desire, but at the end of the day you also need some talent and a killer to be able to take control of the game and be a player that a team can lean on in a time of need. And boy did they need that player against Herzliya.

Jerusalem will have to go back to the drawing board and figure out a way to get back onto the winning track as they now will ready for Ludwigsburg in Basketball Champions League action on Wednesday. The German team will not be an easy out and despite having a new coach in Josh King in place of the legendary John Patrick as they won their first outing in BCL play over Bakken Bears while then beating Hamburg in domestic league action with the ever dangerous Isaiah Whitehead leading the charge.

It doesn’t get an easier for the Reds while the same can be true of Herzliya as they ready for Rytas in their BCL matchup after both teams fell in their respective first continental clash a couple of weeks ago.

Interesting times for both Jerusalem and Herzliya as it will certainly be the survival of the fittest for both clubs both here at home and abroad.

In other action, Hapoel Tel Aviv used a superb third quarter from J’Covan Brown and Xavier Munford to wipe out an 8-point halftime deficit against Hapoel Haifa and record a 87-73 win up by the Carmel Mountain. Amit Simhon (16p), Anthony Hickey (16p) and Jalen Jones (14p) helped the hosts to a 46-38 lead after two quarters but Brown (15p) scored 11 straight points to begin the third frame, Munford (21p) knocked down a trio of triples while Chris Horton dominated the paint with 14 points, 8 rebounds and 5 blocks to take the win ahead of a date with Paris in France.

“We turned over the ball much less and we played very well defensively in the second half,” Tel Aviv coach Danny Franco said. “I am happy that we won against a very well balanced team in a place that is very hard to play in. We changed some things up in the second quarter on the offensive side of the game to open things up for Brown while Horton played very well on the defensive side as did everyone else in a great second half.”

“I didn’t like a lot of things that I saw,” Haifa coach Sharon Drucker commented. “Shots that they missed in the first half they hit in the second half. They played with control and J’Covan started to play well in the second half.”