Hapoel Jerusalem welcomes Prometey on Wednesday (21:00) in Basketball Champions League Play In best of three series action. Ahead of the game, Jerusalem’s interim head coach Yotam Halperin along with Jalen Adams (video below) and Noam Dovrat spoke about the upcoming challenge the Reds face.

“We finished the best that we could in the group stage due to the situation that we were in and now we are going to take on a very good team,” Halperin explained. “There are a number of players who have played here in Israel but it’s not that significant in this series. Both teams know each other well and it should be a long series.”

Dovrat spoke about making his continental debut, “We were able to get home court advantage with the win at Manresa in a game that I was unable to play in (due to BCL rules due to the game being rescheduled) so this game coming up will be my first European contest with Jerusalem. At Rishon I had a chance to play in the EuroCup which allowed me to play against European teams but at the end of the day it’s basketball.”

Halperin understands that Prometey under Israeli bench boss Ronen “Neno” Ginzburg will be ready to face whatever Jerusalem will throw at them and they will need to adjust as the game goes on in order to match up.

“Their coach has done a thing or two in his career and we will really have to react when we have to but we are expecting a long series. Their attack is of the highest quality and they can score plenty and play a high scoring game. They have quality players both you can play individually and as a team and we will do the best that we can do as we have done to date.”

One of those players is D’Angelo Harrison who told The Sports Rabbi that he is looking forward to seeing his former Rishon Le’Zion teammate Noam Dovrat while the feeling is vice versa, “It’s always special to play against a player who was once my teammate and we have a good relationship. It will definitely be interesting to play against him.”

As Dovrat continues to get used to playing in Jerusalem under interim coach Yotam Halperin after a number of seasons with Rishon, the relationship will continue to bare fruits on both sides.

“Both Noam and John (Egbunu) are easy to coach and they will allow us to have further options on offense and defense,” Halperin explained.

“I feel like I am getting into the swing of things with Jerusalem really well,” Dovrat noted. “The players and staff have been a tremendous help and I have waited a long time to be able to work with Yotam Halperin as he played the same position and it’s something great because of his wealth of experience.”