Málaga (EFE).- The Israeli Hapoel Jerusalem is the first finalist of the FIBA Champions League after beating this Friday at the Martín Carpena Palace in Málaga the current champion, Lenovo Tenerife (68-69), in a match in which the Spanish team touched the comeback and even the Uruguayan Bruno Fitipaldo was able to give him the victory with a triple on the horn.
It was a match marked by intensity and equality, especially defensively, and that was imposed more than anyone else by the Israeli team, a Hapoel of excesses, for better and for worse. He spared no effort, in pressing the accelerator even if sometimes he braked.
This is what it means to have played this semifinal as if they were in an Israeli colony, located in one of the corners of the Palacio de los Deportes in Malaga with some two thousand of their followers who resounded the pavilion with hype and chants.
This external fervor is a reflection of how the Jerusalem team plays, which managed to counteract the patience and solidity of a double champion of this competition like Lenovo Tenerife, who started very early marking the field of the basket with the points from their insides most dominant, Gio Shermadini and Fran Guerra.
Lenovo Tenerife overcame that staging of the rival and applied the intelligence that Marcelinho Huertas spoke of in the preview as one of the ingredients for victory. Thus, in four pecks, he made it 25-17 in the second quarter, the maximum difference he would reach in the first half.
But Hapoel felt strong enough to close the gap until they went to half-time, winning and undermining Txus Vidorreta’s plan, who saw his team have a valley stretch as soon as they returned to the floor, to say the least worrying.
Because with two consecutive triples by Khadeen Carrington, formerly of Real Betis, Hapoel Jerusalem moved up ten points in a meteoric stretch (32-42).
The Canarian team, too dependent on Shermadini as an option in attack, suffered a bleeding that was difficult to remedy. They saw themselves losing by 15 points (37-52) shortly after the end of the third quarter and the success of outsiders Brandon Brown and Levi Randolph continued to increase.
The islanders needed to break through the Israeli defensive web and required more from Marcelinho Huertas, Jaime Fernández, Bruno Fitipaldo and other variants to catch up with their rival, extra motivated, grown and with a ten-point advantage to face the last quarter.
A triple from Bolmaro and another from Elgin Cook at 6:00 from the end gave wings to Tenerife, which was stalking its rival. First to eight, then to five points away, later to three with an outside shot by Doornekamp and almost out of breath, a jump shot from the incombustible Huertas to make it 57-58 with four minutes to go.
With the game in hand, the rage and forcefulness of Fran Guerra, who captured a rebound and converted a two plus one to make the hundreds of displaced people roar from Tenerife, who saw his team lead again (59-58) since it was diluted in the second act.
The final stretch was a psychological ‘thriller’ in which the one with the coldest blood would win.
A carousel of emotions then ensued: a triple by power forward Siim-Sander Vene in Marcelinho’s face, the Brazilian’s back door to fatten his personal tally, another and another by Huertas, a triple plus an additional shot by Vene to answer and 67- 67 with 47.6 seconds left.
Shermadini missed a free kick and the elusive Carrington responded to turn the score around and lead Hapoel (68-69). He had Bruno Fitipaldo’s last shot, a triple, to certify the comeback, but he only touched the ring to the chagrin of Tenerife and the madness of the Jerusalem fans.
Datasheet:
68 – Lenovo Tenerife (18+12+12+26): Huertas (20), Salin (3), Cook (1), Doornekamp (6), Guerra (7) -starting five-, Fernández (1), Sastre ( 0), Bolmaro (3), Fitipaldo (5), Abromaitis (4) and Shermadini (18).
69 – Hapoel Jerusalem (15+19+18+17): Smith (2), Randolph (12), Hankins (6), Mejeris (1), Cornelius (0) -cinco inicial-, Carrington (19), Brown (11), Segev (1), Vene (15) y Blayzer (2).
Referees: Manuel Mazzoni (Italy), Ademir Zurapovic (Bosnia), Martin Kozlovskis (Latvia).
Incidents: First semifinal of the FIBA Champions League played at the José María Martín Carpena Sports Palace. EFE