Hapoel Tel Aviv overwhelmed Trefl Sopot 91-72 as Johnathan Motley paced the Reds to the “home” win in Samokov, Bulgaria. Motley and Patrick Beverley began the scoring for Hapoel Tel Aviv from the outset, Marcus Foster Antonio Blakeney piled in the points in the second quarter while Geoffrey Groselle and Nahiem Alleyne countered but the Reds took a 49-32 advantage into halftime.
Jonathan Motley – Photo credit: Hapoel Tel Aviv
Ish Wainright started to fill the basket while Motley continued to do the same, Darious Moten and Nick Johnson tried to cut the gap, but Yam Madar, Beverley and Motley polished off the win. Motley scored 22 points, Madar added 13 points, Blakeney put in 12 points while Foster and Beverley chipped with 11 points each in the win. Groselle and Moten each scored 17 points and Johnson put in 16 points in the loss.
Dimitrios Itoudis – Photo credit: Hapoel Tel Aviv
“I have to congratulate our players for the win,” Hapoel Coach Dimitrios Itoudis began. “It was not our best game, we didn’t play well offensively, we didn’t move the ball well and we were stuck on isolation at times. But we hustled and we got the 50/50 balls and that says a lot about the team, but it wasn’t the best. We did score 91 points and we led from the beginning to the end so that says something positive about us.”
“We have one more game left against a good opponent in Ulm and we both need the game. But we are looking at it one game at a time, we are trying to find out what our identity is. The bench players took over and that was important. We have a crucial game coming up.”
Photo credit: Hapoel Tel Aviv
“I believe that we could have controlled things better,” Trefl coach Zan Tabak said. We gave up too many easy baskets from loose balls, we could have done better. We are going to try and win despite what our results are.”
Jonathan Motley – Photo credit: Hapoel Tel Aviv
The game MVP Jonathan Motley spoke about the win, “I’m trying to do what I can to help the team win, today it was rebounding as my shooting wasn’t as good as I would have liked it to have been. I want to keep going as we need teh one while the EuroCup is very close. We are looking forward to the playoffs but we still have Ulm left next week.”
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