Hapoel Jerusalem played the part of party poopers to perfection as they dominated almost every facet of their 92-77 win over Hapoel Tel Aviv at what was supposed to be a basketball celebration for the hosts Reds at their new home arena, Yad Eliyahu. With over 9,500 fans packed into the legendary facility, Dimitrios Itoudis’s all-star studded team was supposed to come in and demolish the capital city reds with ease in a game that they seemed to have expected would be an easy W.

Instead, Yonatan Alon’s troops not only came to hoop, they knew exactly how to stifle the massive inside presence that both Jonathan Motley and Bruno Caboclo provide Hapoel Tel Aviv as they made sure that they would not be the so called wallflowers in a matchup that many had thought they would be.

But it wasn’t just that Jerusalem knew how to stop what has been a basketball lawnmower, plowing through the Israeli league, it was Hapoel Tel Aviv who also stopped itself in its own tracks, unable to make the necessary plays in order to find a way past a Jerusalem team that is still missing some players due to injuries.

There is plenty to unpack from both the game itself, the decisions leading up to tipoff as well as what the various missing ingredients were for Hapoel Tel Aviv but also what Hapoel Jerusalem did right in order to stun the hosts and send them to their second defeat of the season.

There were two storylines that led up to the contest, one being first and foremost the lack of Hapoel Tel Aviv’s “Ultras” who boycotted the game and disagreed with the move to the larger arena while the second was which players would be registered by Itoudis for the matchup.

The Ultras were missing, plain and simple. As much as the over 8,500 Hapoel Tel Aviv faithful packed into the arena alongside roughly 1,000 Jerusalem fans, the songs and choreography were both way off from a typical game. Sure there was a bit of drum banging and some singing but the way the Ultras usually dictate the entire scene was way off. Usually there is 40 minutes straight cheering and getting the rest of the fans into the action, but on this night that usual display was far from it.

As much as Hapoel Tel Aviv’s management want to say that the fans who were there were great, the ones that were missing make a huge difference and provide an atmosphere conducive for their own team while making it even that more difficult for the opposition. To the reader, this may be a relatively small detail but for someone who has attended years of Hapoel Tel Aviv’s games both in the Drive In, on the road and even in the legendary Ussishkin Arena, this was a major factor that can’t be discounted in the least.

As for the players registered, it was clear heading into this game that Patrick Beverley would be listed after returning from injury and that Joe Ragland would be a big question mark with Antonio Blakeney playing extremely well along with Marcus Foster who is a constant in Itoudis’s lineup. Ragland, a pure point guard can lead the team as the prototypical floor general but most probably the bench boss felt that a combination of Beverley, Yam Madar and Bar Timor would be able to manage the game play and help create opportunities for the rest of the team.

“He [Yam Madar] had a very poor and bad game,” Itoudis said following the game. “As for Ragland, first Bar is also a point guard who had seven assists. It was not the wrong decision as I see the players in the practice and the media doesn’t have that privilege. Jerusalem has an import player who is an Israeli and that’s a big difference, they play with 6 imports and that’s something that needs to be taken into account. Carrington is a terrific player. I had to make a decision and I am standing by it.”

While Beverley (18 points) and Timor (7 assists) were fine, Madar as Itoudis indicated was an absolute disaster with 5 turnovers and just 4 points and 2 assists in 12:34. Without a top level Madar showing, there was going to be no question that Hapoel was going to suffer in a number of ways which we saw clearly over the course of the game and leads us to the brutal performance by the Motley and Caboclo duo.

The two big men played a combined 33:42 and scored just 8 points (3/9 from the floor) to go along with 4 rebounds and 4 turnovers. Yes, you read the stat line for the pair correctly.
Not only did the pair of centers not score and dominate the inside, they also didn’t play defense, they didn’t rebound and they seemed to be lost against smaller and shorter players as Jerusalem didn’t list their only true center in Derek Ogbeide.

Motley spoke about what had happened from his point of view, “They do a good job of packing the paint and they did a good job last game, the touches were a little off and that’s how it goes sometimes.”

Yovel Zoosman was superb on both ends of the floor as was Justin Smith, Jared Harper once again provided plenty of offense as did Khadeen Carrington as Chris Johnson and Tarik both put in fantastic performances.

“They packed the paint,” the Hapoel Tel Aviv bench boss reiterated. “They denied the inside pass and they played a helluva defense and outhustled us. Our bigs were not active on rebounds, Bruno only had one and Motley only had three. If you are not having a good shooting day, you expect at least good defense. You can ask the same question differently, Why were they not as good rebounding the ball. When you have 24 defensive rebounds and the opposition has 17 offensive rebounds that says a lot.”

Instead, Alon’s team used good old fashioned elbow grease, muscle, hustle and desire to outplay the Hapoel Tel Aviv big men as well as the rest of the team to notch the win.
“I don’t think there are secrets in basketball, it’s a team game. We wanted it to look like a team versus individuals,” Alon said about how his squad was able to take the win and shut down such a dominant duo.

In reality, this was so shocking because Motley and Caboclo have been so good this season with the former averaging 12.4 points in the Israeli League and a whopping 15.6 points in the EuroCup while the latter is scoring 10.3 points in the domestic competition and 8.5 points in continental play.

But the effort was clearly coming from Jerusalem and that’s what made all of the difference in closing the pair down.

Effort was the name of the game for the capital city reds as they also scored more second chance points, 19 to 13 as well as points from turnovers 22 to 19 as Itoudis’s team committed an ungodly amount of 19 for the game and finally Jerusalem controlled the offensive boards with 17 to 11.

“I think we are just following a process,” a content Alon said. “Sometimes we are more successful than others. We have some good games and some bad games, we will definitely learn some lessons from this win as well. We try and cut off the outside noise and we don’t allow it to bother us. We don’t make statements, we play basketball and win games and this victory doesn’t say anything about what will be in our next game. We are still in the middle of the season and we have goals. We have a mature enough team here to know that right now is not the time to pat ourselves on the back. This is the time to win games.”

All in all, it was a masterclass performance and one that Itoudis was definitely not fond of which caused a bit of a delay for his postgame press availability.

“Congratulations to Jerusalem they were better and dressed the win, we did not stand up to the occasion and game plan at all. We are disappointed today but it’s a long journey, there are adversities in real life and we will use this on our behalf. Our players are very locked in and understand what happened. This is a long journey for all of us together.”

As for what’s next for Hapoel Tel Aviv ahead of their game against Buducnost, Itoudis made his plans known loud and clear, “Work, criticize, work. Tomorrow was supposed to be a day off, no day off. 3 hours video, another 3 hours practice, that’s the way.”