Hapoel Tel Aviv has lost its opening game of the EuroCup season, going down to Group A opponent Joventut Badalona 78-75 in Barcelona on Tuesday night.

After their surprise loss in the Winner Cup quarterfinal against Ramat Gan on Saturday night, in which many of the Reds’ stars were rested, Hapoel coach Stefanos Dedas started a much stronger starting five – which many would argue is worthy of the EuroLeague, rather than the EuroCup – starting with Patrick Beverley, Marcus Foster, Ish Wainright, Ben Bentil and Johnathan Motley.

Bentil starting the scoring with a field goal on the first play, while shortly after Motley scored his first points putting back a missed shot under the basket from Beverley. But on the other end of the court, Devon Dotson scored his team’s first four points through field goals, while Kaiser Gates scored four consecutive free-throws of fouls by Beverley and Bentil, followed by a three-pointer, giving Badalona a 7-0 run against a rusty-looking Hapoel inside the first four minutes of play – including missed free-throws from Foster and Motley – with Badalona enjoying an 11-5 lead halfway through the first quarter when Dedas called his first time out. It didn’t look better for Hapoel out of the time out, with Dedas calling his second time out within a minute after play resumed after the 7 foot 1 inch Artem Pustovyi dwarfed his more fancied opponent Motley for a dunk and one, with the Spaniards extending their lead to 16-5. Motley made up for it on the next play for his own and-one play to kick-start a 16-0 run for Hapoel to the end the first quarter, with Bruno Caboclo adding 7 points off the bench in the run, with Motley, Beverley and Guy Palatin also hitting the scoreboard to give Hapoel a 21-16 lead after 10 minutes.

Badalona veteran Ante Tomic broke Hapoel’s run with points under the basket at the start of the second quarter and added another 2 shortly after, but Hapoel threatened to extend their lead with baskets to Joe Ragland, Palatin and Caboclo seemingly scoring with ease and giving Hapoel a double-digit lead. However, Dotson, Gates and Tomic swung the game back to Badalona and the lead was eliminated with four minutes remaining in the half and the teams tied at 32-32. After another timeout for Hapoel, Caboclo stymmied the home team’s run with more points taking him into double-digits, but Dotson leveled the scores shortly after with a long-range two-pointer. Defensive prowess from Israeli star Noam Yaacov then resulted in a basket down the other end to his national team captain Tomer Ginat, who came off the bench for the last minutes of the half. Kassius Roberston scored his first points for the evening to level the scores again and the teams went into the locker room at halftime with nothing separating them at 37-37.

The teams traded buckets to start the second half, with Dotson and Motley continuing to add to their halftime scores, with support for the Reds from Bentil, Ragland and Beverley, with support for the Greens coming through Guillem Vives, Yannick Kraag and Tomic. The teams were still inseparable halfway through the third quarter at 48-48. It was at that point that Beverley showed off his defensive skills, drawing a big offensive foul against Robertson driving to the basket for an important turnover, which resulted in a 3-pointer for Palatin on the other end, which was then cancelled out immediately by a three-pointer for veteran Adam Hanga. In what was reflective of a night on which Hapoel left too many points on the line (8/15 as opposed to Badalona’s 14/18), the quarter ended with Bentil missing two free-throw attempts, while Pustovyi made two free-throw attempts, the home team taking a 57-55 lead into the final ten minutes of regulation.

Tomic started off the scoring in the last quarter with back-to-back buckets to give Badalona a six-point buffer, but Ginat got Hapoel’s first basket of the quarter for Hapoel inside two minutes of play to stop the run. Foster scored a 3-pointer shortly after to bring the lead back to three points, then when Ginat scored a layup shortly after the deficit was only one point four minutes into the final term, Badalona’s coach Daniel Miret forced to call a time-out to steady his team. Out of the time-out Gates scored an open three-pointer to extend the lead back out to four points, which was then extended by another point after Vives made a free-throw after an unsportsmanlike foul against Beverley on transition. Kraag then committed his team’s fifth foul for the quarter after five minutes of play, with Ragland making free-throws, then Foster scored a layup to bring the deficit back down to one possession.

However, on the next play the Hapoel defense was again bettered by the taller Badalona front court, with Pustovyi making another three-point play as Caboclo committed his third foul. Beverley made a shot from long-range with three minutes to play to bring the margin back down to three points, with the home team leading 73-70. Motley had the chance to level the scores with a rare shot from outside the arc, after which he seemed to cramp up and went to the floor and then to the bench. It didn’t improve for Hapoel, with Hanga passing to Tomic for another bucket under the basket. But Beverley hit another three-pointer as the clocked ticked into the last minute to bring the margin down to 75-73, but Hanga then scored a layup on Beverley to push out the lead again to four points with Dedas calling another time out. Hapoel wasn’t able to affect the scoreboard out of the time-out. While Ginat scored a bucket close to the buzzer, it wasn’t enough, the home team taking the win on the opening night.

Tomic (17 points, 12 rebounds and 2 assists), Gates (16 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 block), Dotson (11 points, 4 rebounds and 6 assists) and Pustovyi (11 points 5 rebounds and 1 block) led the scoring for Badalona, while Caboclo (14 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 steals and 2 blocks), Beverley (14 points, 3 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals) and Motley (11 points, 6 rebounds and 1 assist) were in double-digits for the Reds.

“I’m very happy personally for this victory,” Miret said after the win. “We had a very long week. We prepared the game in short time, but courage of the players was unbelievable. I think that we show a very good picture of the team trying to play together, also the work that we did in defense. Of course, we had some very weak moments in the second quarter, but then we competed well in the second half. For some of the players it’s their first experience in Europe and I think it’s a great victory for our team.

“Of course, this is only one game, we need to improve on a lot of things, but the mentality and the personality of the team was great today and we finished well especially after these bad moment in the second quarter, we finished being more solid in the second half.”

“First of all, congratulations to Joventut for their win,” a defeated Dadas said in the post-game press conference. “It wasn’t the way we want to start this campaign. We lost the game, I think the way it was, we didn’t play a good game, but Badalona didn’t play a good game either. It was a battle for almost 40 minutes, except the first quarter when they took the lead and then we took it back. After that it was a very close game, one or two shots.

“In the end, I think there were two situations, the and-one of Pustovyi and the three points of Gates that got them a couple of possessions ahead,” Dedas continued. “We had only four turnovers, three of those turnovers were in the first three minutes. So in 37 minutes we only had one turnover. But I think statistically, if you analyze the stats, the missing free-throws and the bad percentage of three-point shots (9/35) didn’t let us get over 80 points which was the target of this game. Of course, to do that and give Badalona 75 points would be enough to win. It didn’t happen. We have a lot of games ahead of us. It was difficult beginning here, it’s a tough place to play. Let’s hope we’ll be better in the next game and justify the reason that we built this team.”

“It was a good game for us,” game MVP Tomic said after the win. “Opening game of the season in front of our crowd, against probably the best team in the EuroCup. Important for us to see where we stand at this point. I’m very proud of these guys.

“It was crucial to control the game in the second half, totally the opposite of the first half, where we had our run, then minus 16 in 5 minutes. The second half it was opposite and controlling the game. A bit bad with the rebounds, but it’s ok – something to improve.”

Hapoel will now return to Israel to train for the next week, after which they will fly to Bulgaria for their opening “home” game of the EuroCup at Samokov Arena against the Lithuanian BC Wolves Vilnius.