Hapoel Tel Aviv crushed Bologna 109-91 as five players scored in double digits to help the reds cruise to the decisive win. Dimitrios Itoudis’s squad came out firing on all cylinders and quickly built up a double digit lead as Hapoel dominated very face of the game to sweep both Euroleague contests this week to bump their record up to 20-11 good for 4th place. Next up for the Reds are two games in Spain at Real Madrid and then up at Baskonia.

Vasilije Micic, Dan Oturu, Ish Wainright and Collin Malcolm all scored for Hapoel Tel Aviv while Derrick Alston Jr. responded for Bologna but it was the Reds who grabbed an early 33-19 lead after ten minutes of play. Antonio Blakeney and Johnathan Motley started to find the bottom of the basket as the pair poured in points in the second quarter while Alen Smailagic tried to keep the game close, but the reds headed into halftime in front 65-40.

The second half was all Hapoel as Elijah Bryant, Oturu and Malcolm continued to fill the basket in the third quarter as the Italians had no answer for Motley and Bar Timor who kept scoring at will in the final frame to close out the 18-point victory. Motley led the way with 22 points while Oturu and Blakeney each scored 14 points in the win while Alston and Matthew Morgan each scored 24 points in the defeat.

Hapoel Head Coach Dimitrios Itoudis discussed the victory, “We talked from the beginning that Hapoel Tel Aviv had never left contact with the playoffs or play-in spot. This is something that we need to take into consideration. The team was consistent, we had ups and downs as every team has, but we never left contact with the play-in or playoff spots and this says something. We’ve got what we have now. We don’t have [games in the Israeli League]; we are practicing seriously, we’ve got some players back. So this is what we want: to work and to stay healthy, mind and body.”

Bologna bench boss Duško Ivanović said, “This was not the real Bologna we saw in the first half. We didn’t fight and we have to look different already in the next game. We came with a short roster, but the problem was that we didn’t fight.”

Dan Oturu spoke about the win, “We knew coming into today’s game that every game moving forward is important, but we’re still taking it one game at a time. Coming out, being aggressive from the first minute of the game. We knew Bologna coming in had some injuries, had some guys down and we knew that, coming in, some of their other guys were going to have to step up and impact the game even more, so we just stayed locked in from the first minute until the end.”