After losing two consecutive games to end the momentum of a previous five-game winning streak, the opening stages of Wednesday’s home meeting with Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv suggested it would be another rough night for Wolves Twinsbet Vilnius. 

The visiting team’s offense was firing on all cylinders in the opening exchanges, as Hapoel scored 8 of its first 9 field goal attempts to hold a series of double-digit leads, with the highest difference reaching 13 points at 14-27. 

Wolves, though, was shooting with incredible accuracy from long-range at the other end, keeping itself in the game by making 12 of its 19 three-point attempts in the first half – with multiple triples coming from the unstoppable Anthony Cowan, Andrew Andrews and Tre’Shawn Thurman.

Thanks to those long bombs a breathless first half ended with Hapoel leading by just 2 points (56-58), but if the fans were hoping for a similarly high-scoring second half they would be disappointed. As Wolves coach Alessandro Magro told Euroleague TV before the second half got underway: “I think we should start to play some defense. Games like this are very interesting for the fans, but not the coaches.”

Magro got his wish. Wolves seriously tightened up its defense after the break, playing with much more physicality to pull back Hapoel’s powerful offense from 58 first-half points to 42 in the third and fourth quarters.

"Wolves Twinsbet": Anthony Cowan 28 (10 assists), Tre'Shawn Thurman 23, Andrew Andrews 20, Garrison Brooks 10, Arnoldas Kulboka 9, Kristupas Žemaitis 8, Regimantas Miniotas, Marek Blaževič, and Matas Jogėla – 2 each. Vaidas Kariniauskas did not score, Daniel Baslyk and Justinas Marcinkevičius did not played. 

"Hapoel": Yam Madar scored 28 (7 assists, 41 PIR), Marcus Foster – 17, Marcus Bingham – 12 points. 

Coaches' comments

The next BKT EuroCup game for "Wolves Twinsbet" will take place on December 18, away against Ratiopharm Ulm in Germany.

(Photo by Rokas Lukoševičius)