Hapoel Tel Aviv fell at Baskonia 118-109 in a game that saw a Euroleague record broken for most points in the first half of a game by both teams as they combined for 131 points. The loss dropped Hapoel down to 5th place with a record of 20-13 with five games remaining in the regular season. Elijah Bryant paced the Reds in the first quarter to give Dimitrios Itoudis’s squad a slim 31-28 lead but the scoring continued into the second quarter as Trent Forrest helped the hosts to a 67-64 advantage at halftime.

From there, Baskonia, who were playing the game behind closed doors due the Spanish government’s security concerns, kept scoring at will as seven of Paolo Galbiati’s players scored on doubt digits to take the victory. Bryant scored 26 points, Dan Oturu added 21 points and Antonio Blakeney scored 19 points in the loss while Forrest scored 22 points, Mamadi Diakite put in 15 points and Kobi Simmons scored 14 points in the win.

Hapoel Tel Aviv Head Coach Dimitris Itoudis summed up his team’s performance, “118 points is a terrible result. We didn’t convince our players to play much better defense, play aggressive, use the fouls more and be intelligent to stop them making plays. Baskonia deserved the win.”