High gear: Hapoel defeated Turk Telekom

After the Belgrade camp, in which the team participated during the last two weeks and in which they played three preparatory games, Hapoel arrived in Banja Luka, Bosnia, yesterday. There, the team will participate in the tournament at the prestigious Banja Luka along with other European elite teams such as Partizan Belgrade, CSKA Moscow, Turk Telekom, Galatasaray, and Igokea.

Today (Thursday), the team faced Turk Telekom and beat it 87:79 after dominating the entire game and maintaining a stable lead. The Reds enjoyed an excellent night from Brynton Lemar (23) and Levi Randolph (17). Tomorrow (21:00), Hapoel will play against Serbia's Partizan Belgrade.

Course of the game

Hapoel's opening five: Brynton Lemar, Yovel Zoosman, Levi Randolph, Oz Blayzer, and Zach Hankins

The game opened fairly evenly with great actions by Lemar, who, in addition to his points and personal actions, activated the team in general and Zach Hankins in particular. Two steals by Levi Randolph and Yovel Zoosman led Hapoel to a 17:11 lead and a Turkish timeout. Hapoel continued to play a great defensive game with Johnson, who excelled in some tremendous fighting moves, and at the end of the first quarter, it was 30:17 for Hapoel.

Hapoel started the second quarter the same way it ended the first: with strong defense, effective attacks, and a lot of fighting. Hankins and Randolph led the run that led the Turkish coach to take a timeout, 40:22 to the Reds. Telekom came back well from the timeout and went on a 16:0 run. Randolph continued his excellent game and, with very positive personal actions, increased the gap to 49:41 to Hapoel at the end of the first quarter.

The third quarter opened with fumbles by both teams and a mutual exchange of baskets. Lemar continued to excel and be very active in the offense, together with Zoosman, who led the Jerusalem defense. Descendant entered the game for the first time and took some positive actions that kept Jerusalem's advantage. Telekom finished the quarter with some easy baskets that narrowed the gap a bit at the end of the third quarter, but not before Levi Randolph made a crazy three-pointer to make the score 68:62.

Hapoel started the fourth quarter well, with Or Cornelius making important moves, taking a double-digit lead at 74:62 and forcing the Turk to go to a timeout early in the quarter. Chachashvili also looked good, but Turk did not give up and insisted on staying in the game. Exchange of baskets on both sides, good and fighting defenses—in the end, RED W 89:79.

Zach Hankins summed up the game: "It's an excellent victory, and of course we have a lot of things to improve on, and we will improve them as we continue to play together. He also added, "It's a lot of fun to play against teams with such a high profile; it gave us a lot of drive to win."

Tomorrow (21:00, broadcast on Sport 3), Hapoel will play against Partizan Belgrade in the Banja Luka tournament and hope to qualify for the finals of the tournament. After the tournament in Banja Luka, the Reds will return to Israel and play in the Tel Aviv tournament against the Italian team Sassari.