You can roll out all of the slogans and sayings for Hapoel Jerusalem’s game Wednesday night as they welcome STAL Ostrow to Israel. This is do or die, no way back, backs against the wall you name it as the Reds not only have to win the game versus their Polish foes, they need to do so by 12 points or more as they look to somehow and someway take third place in Group B.

Sure Jerusalem has two more games after this one in group play but in reality, this is it. Both games against Pinar Karsiyaka and Manresa are on the road and right now with an 0-3 record which includes a brutal loss at STAL by 11 points, puts the Reds in a very, very precarious situation.

The club has already offloaded coach Oren Amiel who returned to Israel after many years abroad in the Czech Republic with all of the pomp and circumstance but his very short time in charge of the team was disastrous and one which the team along with their fans be very happy to forget and forget quickly.

Nothing seemed to work from using the players at his disposal to their best of their abilities or how he related to them, the press and management. It was a pressurized situation that came to a swift end before the season even made it to the month of November.

Now under interim coach Yotam Halperin who he himself was just recently a player, the squad looks to at least have righted itself with the players not seemingly holding up a 1 million pound boulder over their heads and the joy of the game has returned.

Along with Halperin, the linchpin of the staff is no doubt Donalds Kairys who is not only the lead assistant but is really the man running the plays from the bench including the timeouts. And that is more than fine for everyone involved.

Halperin has never been a coach before and the Lithuanian has worked for close to two decades in the field with some of the biggest names in the sport including Ettore Messina with CSKA Moscow when they captured the Euroleague title back for than ten years ago.

Jerusalem has played some quality Israeli league basketball over the last two games with home wins over Hapoel Holon and Hapoel Gilboa Galil and the star of the show earlier this week Sean Kilpatrick shared the reason why.

“We are playing a lot freer and coach has slowed us down and made us read defenses a lot more. When you have the type of talent we have you can let your game take over. When you have a coach that believes in the team and the players then the sky’s the limit. It all starts with us listening to our captain and we are the soldiers.”

Halperin agreed that the key has to be slowing things down on the court and have the players process the situation better than they had been, “We had to control the pace much better, we had to slow things down and while we didn’t do that well against Gilboa and it won’t be good enough on Wednesday if we play this way versus STAL.”

The bottom line is, Jerusalem must take it play by play and not get too much ahead of themselves against Ostrow. If they can make sure to go from one possession to the next, then they should be just fine and wipe out that 11 point difference which could be key to find a way into the next round. The other important factor will be the intensity and aggressiveness that they take into a game which has been inconsistent especially in continental competition.

“The importance of this game is clear,” Halperin continued. “We all understand the situation that we are currently in when it comes to European competition. I’m sure the Arena will be packed for the game as everyone knows that this is super critical for the team. The guys showed character the last two games which were after two tough months. From my experience when a coach leaves a team it shakes everyone up and they become super focused on the task at hand. The Polish team is well coached and have many ways to defend and attack. We will put an emphasis on our aggressiveness which will be very relevant in the game.”

Retin Obasohan, who came to Jerusalem after playing under former coach Oren Amiel in Nymburk also knows that they are at a point of no return, “It’s great to win games but we have to keep our feet on the ground and we are hoping to continue our play with the help of the fans. We want to come into the game and play hard and strong. We will have to do everything in our power to win the game and we will focus on the small things.”

Finally, veteran Israeli center Itay Segev related that the team had gotten a big confidence boost which they will have to carryover to this matchup, “I believe that we are a good team and if we play like we did the last two games we will win.”