Hapoel Jerusalem lost to Prometey 85-75, eliminating them from further European competition. The visitors set the tone of the game early on and built up a 15 point lead after the first quarter. While the Reds were able to pare down the advantage to just a single point 56-55 later on, Prometey was able to pull away and squash the comeback with fine play across the board.
https://youtu.be/kkFMVYKXLhcHapoel Jerusalem was without assistant coach Donaldas Kairys and Prometey’s Israeli head coach Ronen Ginzburg was also absence due to COVID while the game was officiated by only two referees as the third tested positive as well.

For Hapoel Jerusalem, Retin Obasohan led his team with 19 points, Braimoh finished with 15 points, and Adams had 13 points. For Prometey, Harrison led his team with 19 points, Kennedy had 17, and Stephens had 15.

After the game, Jerusalem’s high scorer Retin Obasohan spoke about the defeat, “it was a hard fought game, obviously it didn’t go the way we wanted it to, that’s obviously unfortunate. But I want to give credit to my teammates and to our coaching staff, and to our fans, there was a period that was really dark for us, and I am really proud of the fact that we were able to give ourselves a chance, even when it looked like we didn’t have any.” He continued saying, “I believe we didn’t play up to our full potential, it doesn’t matter who we play against, we have to be better at what we do, then they are at what they do…We have to go back to the drawing board, even myself I take full responsibility, I could have played way better and should have played way better. We just have to keep on going, there is a lot of season left.”

Coach Yotam Halperin commented on his team’s loss, “First of all, disappointed, we were leading 1-0 in the series. The first two games I think we dominated the games, but today we did not play our best. That’s obvious. It’s important for me to say I am very very proud of the players, they fought. Today was too much for us, but we are going to keep our heads up and there are two more titles to fight for in Israel.”

D’Angelo Harrison spoke about Prometey’s win, “it was a tough game, I have to give credit to Jerusalem of course, tough team, but we grinded it out and stayed together the whole time.” His coach echoed him with a similar sentiment admitting that it was a tough game, and that he gives congratulations to the players, and a big thanks to the fans that stuck with them.

The Reds started off with an incredibly weak defense, falling down 9-0 in the opening minutes. They spent the rest of the game trying to climb out of the hole they dug themselves in but ultimately couldn’t. Towards the end of the first quarter the Reds had a slight momentum shift as Retin Obasohan and John Egbunu had beautiful layups. The quarter ended at 27-12, with a large 15 point gap.

The hosts continued to have some momentum as they had a great start to the second quarter scoring 8 points in the opening two minutes. Furthermore, they held Prometey scoreless for the first four minutes in the second quarter. However, as the second quarter progressed, the Reds seemed to lose their earlier stride and ended the half still down 43-36.

Throughout the second half of the game, the Reds came close to eliminating the gap between them and Prometey a few times. At one point in the third quarter they were only down 43-41, and for a moment in the fourth quarter, the score was 65-62. However, the Reds kept letting Prometey grow their lead. In addition, there were multiple missed offensive opportunities that could have kept the Reds in the game had they capitalized on their chances. For the better half of the fourth quarter, Prometey was able to hold onto a large lead until the end of the game.