Hapoel Jerusalem will ready for the second game of two against Igokea in Champions League action on Thursday at 19:00 Israel time. The Reds fell in the first game 75-73 which was their “road” game on Tuesday night while the second game will be their “home” game. The scheduling change was done for economic reasons for both teams and the delay in the originally slated home game benefited Jerusalem in order to give both J’Covan Brown and Malcolm Hill more time to recuperate from their injuries.

Truth be told, both Brown and Hill were in the lineup but both didn’t make the contributions that were expected or perhaps they were expected. Brown had recently returned from a shoulder injury that will take time even now to get back to normal and it was clear the last couple of league games Brown wasn’t himself and there was serious concern by coach Oded Katash who is one to never mince words. Hill has been out for two plus months after suffering a broken hand and Katash decided to immediately insert him not only back into the squad for the critical games in Bosnia but even put him into the starting lineup, a decision that has to be questioned.

Brown was not his usual self and although he scored 15 points, the captain went 2/11 from beyond the arc in 28 minutes while dishing out only 5 assists. Hill played 19 minutes and scored just four points while also playing in crunch time minutes again in his first game back after being out.

“We came into the game knowing that it wasn’t going to be easy as Igokea has been playing well all season,” said Katash. Now if that’s the case, why rely so heavily on Hill and Brown. Add to that Chris Kramer had a nightmare of a game. Why not use the players that have gone to war for you the last month game in and game out as have led the team to a perfect 7-0 league record? That’s not to say Brown shouldn’t have played, but he certainly shouldn’t have had to play close to 30 minutes. As for Hill, the small forward had no business being on the court. You can’t screw around with chemistry because you “think” you may surprise the opposition, it just doesn’t work that way in professional basketball and I’m shocked Katash believed that.

After trying a similar shtick in Athens in October when Jerusalem signed Nikos Pappas for the Champions League Final 8 he really should have known better from experience than to stick a guy in cold who hasn’t played or jelled with the team. You can’t make that mistake in a huge Champions League game in a competition that sees each team playing only 6 games in the group stage with the top two moving on. This isn’t the Balkan league and not the Israeli league, this is Europe. Jerusalem is now 1-2, while Igokea and Turk Telekom are 2-1, relying on Hill was playing with fire and Katash was burnt, burnt badly.

There’s a short turnaround and Katash has to make sure that his team is ready to go less than 48 hours after a stinging defeat. “We shot the ball very poorly and I hope that in the next game we will hit our shots, especially our pretty guards.”

Chris Kramer put out on Twitter his immediate thoughts following the game.

That loss hurt…beauty of the game is we right back to it on Thursday. I gotta be better than I was tonight.

— Chris Kramer (@C_K_3) December 22, 2020

Brown looked ahead at the keys for Jerusalem in the second game which is now a must win more than ever, “We got to make shots and play defense, do what we do best, play together, stay together and play like a team.”