Hapoel Tel Aviv defeated Fenerbahce 95-80 as the reds closed in on clinching a Euroleague playoff spot with a record of 22-13 good for 4th place overall in the standings. Dimitrios Itoudis’s team came out of fire as Elijah Bryant, Dan Oturu, Antonio Blakeney and perhaps most importantly Vasilije Micic were able to take a 51-38 lead at halftime while neutralizing Talen Horton-Tucker and holding him scoreless over the opening twenty minutes.

Wade Baldwin tried to keep the Turkish side close with 17 first half points but was only able to score five points over the course of the second half as Hapoel cruised to the 15-point victory. Oturu scored 23 points, Bryant added 21 points and Micic scored 19 points in the win while Baldwin scored 22 points in the defeat. Next up for the reds is a date with first place Olympiacos in a home away from home game in Sofia, Bulgaria on Thursday night (19:30 Israel time).

Hapoel Tel Aviv Head Coach Dimitrios Itoudis spoke about the win, “First, I want to congratulate the team. We were the better team from start to finish, so we deserve to win today. We won against the defending champions, a great, well-coached team. It was a very important game and I’m proud of the performance. We were locked in with the right mindset from the beginning.

“We stuck to the plan and the players executed brilliantly. They stayed focused throughout. You’re playing against a team that can hurt you at any given moment. We proved that we can really play good basketball on both ends of the floor when we are locked in. We were locked in and we were the better team.”

The game MVP Dan Oturu talked about the importance of the win, ”We knew coming into the game that starting off a double week against a very good opponent, Fener, the defending champions so it was important for us to bounce back against them and win. We knew they were going to come and compete, so we had to come out and punch first. We have to match the energy that they bring each and every night, and we had to show that we were ready to compete. I think we did that well in this game.”

Vasilije Micic added, “This was an important win. We stood against what is perhaps the best team in the EuroLeague. They had a lot of injuries, many injuries throughout the season that caused them to lose momentum. What mattered was winning the game.”