Hapoel Tel Aviv defeated Valencia 96-91 as Antonio Blakeney, Jonathan Motley and Yam Madar starred to even up their EuroCup semifinal series at 1-1. The Reds came into game two of the best-of-3 series with their backs against the wall at their home away from home in Samokov, Bulgaria due to the ongoing security situation in Israel after falling to the Spaniards 91-82 at La Fonteta earlier last week. 

However, despite playing in another country over 2,000 fans flew to support their team in their time of need which gave Hapoel the extra boost that they needed to send the series back to Valencia for a decisive game three this coming Wednesday night. 

Head Coach Dimitrios Itoudis’s team jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead thanks to Madar while Motley’s scoring prowess gave the Reds a 54-49 advantage at halftime. Blakeney took control of the game in the third quarter and bumped the Hapoel lead up to 71-55 but Valencia cut down the gap to just 5 points, 76-71 heading into the final frame with baskets from Chris Jones, Nathan Reuvers and Stefan Jovic. An injured Madar and Blakeney were able to hold Matt Costello and Jean Montero at bay over the course of the fourth quarter to notch the win. 
Motley scored 26 points (8 rebounds), Antonio Blakeney added 22 points and Yam Madar scored 21 (9 assists) in the victory. Matt Costello scored 21 points, Reuvers put in 13 points and Jovic chipped in with 11 points in the loss.

“Congratulations to the players,” Itoudis began. “It was an important and historic victory for us until the next one. We are in the process of building something good and this is another brick in the foundation that we are trying to build. Congratulations also to owner Ofer Yannay and the fans. It was really like a home game and it’s important and the players executed the game plan.”

“We came straight from Valencia here, we worked a lot, we analyzed, we tried to fix things and modify some things on our defensive plan, on offense we saw the things that worked well. Overall we were dominant in our game plan. We are playing against a great team that needs less than a minute to ignite something good and they did that in the third quarter where they got us out of our composure and closed the deficit to two points. We after that after that we calmed down and saw the positions where we can hit better. The fans deserved to celebrate with us,” he added.

Reds captain Bar Timor shared his thoughts at the end of the game, “We gave it our all and more and it was difficult. We won and that’s what matters. We struggled in the third quarter here even though the way it looked at the end might have seemed the opposite. We knew we had to play 40 minutes and not like in the previous game where we mainly played a good first half. They did come back into the game, but fortunately we made some big plays and managed to win.”

Antonio Blakeney also spoke about the victory, “We didn’t turn the ball over and we have a talented team and we are going to find a way to score. The coach and my teammates trust me. My work is paying off. The fans? A big thank you to our crowd, they made a big difference for us, it was a crazy atmosphere, we really appreciate it, we know it’s not easy to fly out here as it costs money and time to fly here and we appreciate it.”