Jerusalem knock off RIESEN on the road

LUDWIGSBURG (Germany) - Neither MHP RIESEN nor Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem were able to clinch their spot in the Round of 16 as Group E winners, as Jerusalem emerged with a tough 87-81 road win. It will now come down to the final game of the regular season next week to see who comes out on top of the group.

RIESEN would've won the group and advanced with a win, and Jerusalem would've advanced with a win by 10 or more points after Bakken Bears defeated Darussafaka.

This is only the second time that RIESEN have lost back-to-back games since a stretch of three losses between January-February 2019. This is also consecutive home losses for RIESEN in the Basketball Champions League against a team from Israel.

Jerusalem have now won each of their last four away games in the BCL regular season after losing the previous four.

 

Turning point: Both RIESEN and Jerusalem came out firing and had the same shooting stats in the first quarter (10-of-16 from the field), but it was RIESEN who led 27-24. The second quarter remained close, and Jerusalem grabbed a two-point lead heading into halftime and were sparked by Or Cornelius' three-point shooting, as he connected on both of his attempts in the second quarter and was 3-of-3 through the first two quarters.

The two teams stayed within reach of each other throughout the entire game, as the biggest lead of the game was only 9 points. Jerusalem gained the upper hand after going on a 13-7 run to close the game out thanks to Khadeen Carrington's two clutch back-to-back shots to put Jerusalem up 81-74.

Game heroes: Zach Hankins led Jerusalem in scoring with 19 points along with 7 rebounds and 2 assists and shot an efficient 9-of-13 from the field. The 26-year-old also finished with a game-high efficiency rating of 20.

Point guard Speedy Smith made key plays throughout the game and recorded 15 points and 6 assists, also finishing with an efficiency rating of 20 and this halfcourt alley-oop assist:

Stats don't lie: Jerusalem outscored RIESEN 27-16 in points from turnovers, as RIESEN committed 19 turnovers, their second-most in a game this season in the BCL. Jerusalem also swiped away 12 steals and four different players had 2 steals each.

Bottom line: Jerusalem improve to 4-1 in Group E and the Israeli club will travel to face Darussafaka (2-3) on Tuesday December 20.

RIESEN fall to 3-2 in the group, and they were led in defeat by Yorman Polas who finished with 13 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists. The 37-year-old veteran player didn't miss a shot in the game, as he went 3-of-3 from the field and 6-of-6 from the free-throw line. The German club will close group play on the road against Bakken Bears (1-4) on Tuesday December 20.

They said:

"I'm proud of the team. We knew this was a big game coming in, so we just tried to come in here and follow coach's gameplan and try to get a win. I shot pretty bad the whole game, but I just tried to stay focused, and my team, they stayed on me. They told me 'Keep shooting' and I hit the shots when it mattered the most." - Khadeen Carrington, Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem

"Doing the math before the game, 'let's beat them like this and that,' I'm not sure that's the right way to spend energy and time. So, we came here to play as good as possible and control what we can control." - Aleksandar Dzikic, Head Coach Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem

"A tough loss in an important game. They just played better than us in most aspects of the game - toughness, getting loose balls. Defensively, we just didn't perform how we wanted to perform today." - Jonathan Baehre, MHP RIESEN Ludwigsburg

"They [Jerusalem] were the more physical team, hungry team. They're well coached and they've got really good players. I always say the formula of a good coach: play hard, good players. Going to be hard to win if you don't play well and we didn't play well. We made several mistakes. We shot the ball pretty well, but too many turnovers. We had the lead by five in the third quarter... we had a situation in the first half where we were up six... so we really couldn't knock them out. They made big plays when they needed to." - Josh King, Head Coach MHP RIESEN Ludwigsburg