Hapoel Tel Aviv got off to a rough start in Tuesday night’s playoff final opener against its biggest rival, trailing 25-16 after the first quarter and 49-34 at halftime. The opening period was the team’s lowest-scoring first quarter of the season in the Israeli league under Dimitris Itoudis.
The previous season-worst first quarter in league play had been 17 points, which Hapoel reached twice, against Ra'anana in round 4 and Elitzur Netanya in round 14. Hapoel won both of those games. In EuroLeague play, its worst first quarter was 14 points against Anadolu, a game it also won.
Hapoel turned the ball over four times in the first 10 minutes, and Vasilije Micić was the clearest symbol of the team’s poor first-half showing. The Serbian guard went into halftime with no points on 0-for-4 shooting, while adding four rebounds, four assists and five turnovers.