JERUSALEM (Israel) - Things can change very quickly during the course of a basketball season. One minute you are flying and the next you are knocked out and on the floor. In the case of Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem, they have already seen two mirror cycles of this exact situation. Before the season started the recruitment of NBAers Thon Maker, Anthony Bennet, and BCL Coach of the Year Oren Amiel had many fans on cloud 9. But after three games of the season, the standings in Group B didn't make great reading for those of a Hapoel Jerusalem persuasion.

They had lost all three, including two of those games at home in the Pais Arena, usually a fortress with those fans behind them. After a mid-season coaching change, things have completely flipped again. Sports Director and former player Yotam Halperin took over the coaching position and despite having never coached as much as a U14 youth team before, the team's fortunes reversed almost instantly and Jerusalem have secured a place in the Play-In games - a position that looked impossible only weeks ago. 

Things are looking up for Yotam Halperin and Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem

"I think Oren is a great coach, I think Oren is an amazing character as well", said Yotam Halperin. Despite the rapid turnaround in the team's performances and results, Jerusalem's redeemer is attaching no blame to the man that he recruited. 

"I was one of the guys that chose Oren to be the Head Coach of Hapoel Jerusalem and unfortunately, things went wrong. That can happen in Basketball, you can have the best coach in the world, in the best situation in the world, with the best players in the world and sometimes things can go wrong", he stated. Whilst this may sound simplistic sometimes it is very difficult to explain why things don't go to plan and in the world of performance sport, a club doesn't always have the time they would like to find out why - difficult decisions need to be made. 

"Never in my life", Halperin said emphatically on the topic of previous coaching experience before stepping into the void left by Amiel. Indeed, it's not often that we see a situation where a Sporting Director with zero coaching experience is offered the big job but at the same time, it would also be slightly disingenuous to describe Halperin as a complete newbie. A player that has worked with coaching greats such as Dusan Ivkovic, Svetislav Pesic, Zmago Sagadin, Pini Gershon, David Blatt, and Oded Kattash to name but a few, certainly isn't starting with a blank page. 

"I have been lucky enough to take things from all of them but the best coaches get the players to commit. Commit to the life of basketball, commit to the team, and most of all commit to themselves," Halperin said when describing the lessons learned from playing under some of the best to ever scribble on the tactics board in Europe. There was also an element of luck, maybe even fate (if we are to be slightly dramatic) behind his ability to take the role when asked by the club. It was certainly not a planned career tangent for one of Europe's up-and-coming front office stars. "In Israel, you can’t just jump in and coach, you need certificates and it only just happens that I had done my certificates a few months ago," he said.

But things couldn't have gone much better so far considering the lack of experience and unexpected circumstances. Jerusalem have lost only once under Halperin's guidance, a road loss to Bnei Herzalia in the Israeli league. The win count is currently at nine. For Halperin, a lot of this new coach bounce is a direct result of exactly that, a reaction to a coaching change from the players. "When a club fires a coach, naturally everyone steps up. Players do extra that they weren’t doing before. I think the most important thing is to take it step-by-step," he stated, before making it clear that step-by-step has become the mantra and credits his players for the same commitment that was so valuable to coaches that he learned from in the past.

"I think the players bought into it, we took it step by step, even possession by possession."

Halperin, however, is under no illusions and isn't willing to get ahead of himself despite the hot start."As a coach, I don’t have any experience, I’m living day by day to learn and understand the situation. I can say that so far I have used more of my experience as a player. It’s very easy to understand players when you were in that situation before," he said. 

So, what has changed? The first place to look is the data...

What we can see across the three tabs of the data story above is that the major driving force behind Jerusalem's upturn has been an increase in efficiency on the offensive end. Across the first three games of the Regular Season, they recorded an Offensive Rating of just 95.4 points per 100 possessions. Since Halperin took over that has jumped to over 117 points per 100 possessions in two games. So, even though their Defensive Rating also improved from 103 points per 100 down to 98, that improvement of 5 points per 100 wouldn't be enough to drive the huge v-shaped improvement in their overall Net Rating since Gameday 3. 

If we flip over to the third tab labeled "Pace and Shooting" we get the beginnings of some insight. As you would expect when a team is improving on the offensive end, their Effective Field Goal Percentage has dramatically increased over the last two games. From an eFG% of 43 percent to 57 percent. What is maybe even more telling is the slight but significant decline in possessions per game. Over the first three games of the season Jerusalem played at a pace of 76.3 possessions per game. This has dropped to just above 71 per game across the last two games. This seems to be by design. "I’m trying to find the balance between going to wild and when we need to push the ball every second," said Halperin.

That's not to say this squad was intentionally constructed by Oren Amiel - and Halperin himself - to push the tempo but more to demonstrate that they are finding a better balance recently. "You could see with Oren’s Nymburk teams that they were teams that played with a lot of possessions and shot a lot of threes. One of the things that Oren did was to put this in immediately when he arrived and I think this is something good for this team," he admitted before re-iterating the importance of keeping a relatively inexperienced squad grounded. "We want to play at a fast pace but we have to do it smartly, we can’t just go and play a wild game because then we are losing control," Halperin said.

One of the players that most personifies this change in control is Retin Obasohan. The Belgian made a slow start to the season but has looked back to his MVP-caliber best of late. 22 points, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists against ARGED BM Stal Ostrow Weilkopolski was followed up with 22 points and  5 assists on the road in Karsiyaka. The set in the video below may be very familiar if you have watched Jerusalem of late, as will be the outcome. the play starts with #32 Obasohan throwing the ball ahead to #22 Kaiser Gates then instantly getting the ball back in a handoff ("GET" action). This is followed by a "Veer" screen by #6 Itay Segev into a pin down for #23 Sean Kilpatrick. The defense covered all the action well and even the flare screen after wasn't able to create an advantage for Jerusalem. This is where Obasohan has been really growing as a leader. Late in the shot clock, going hard to the rim, "Oba" is as hard to stay in front of as any player you will find in the BCL.

More of the same in the next two clips. First, we see the same entry to the set with GET action but a different option and #17 Braimoh rolling instead of the Veer Screen away. Karsiyaka and Tysus switched the ball screen but when Jerusalem couldn't get the ball inside to punish the mismatch, the ball eventually found its way back to Obasohan who did the damage with a hesitation move and wrong hand, wrong foot finish. Then, second, we see another of Jerusalem's more common sets that is designed to up the tempo; an empty corner drag screen. Again Karsiyaka switched and again Obasohan created something from nothing late in the shot clock. 

Another important change for Jerusalem has been the return of Suleiman Braimoh. Braimoh was very much a known quantity and has already started to do what he does best. The frontcourt has been visibly galvanized by his return. At 6'8" (2.03m) he can stretch the floor but also play inside and in particular, we have seen his ability to link the play start to bring the best out of others. 

In the play below we see Jerusalem in a "Horns" set with two bigs on the elbows and both corners filled. Braimoh sets the side pick-and-roll then seals off against his mismatch after Pinar Karsiyaka switched. Segev knew exactly how to find him and they got the easy high-low pass from big to big. 

Braimoh also has the flexibility to combine well with a stretch big. In the clip below we see Jerusalem find him on the short roll after Karsiyaka blitzed the pick-and-roll. The defense collapses on him and he instantly notices #13 Anthony Bennet's man over helping and hits him with the kick-out pass. 

Coming back to the same empty corner drag screen that we see so often from Jerusalem, and again Braimoh already making an important difference. Watch how he waves #4, Jalen Adams, down to the level of the free-throw line making it easier to find him on the short-roll again. This time the pass goes to Bennet again but one step ahead of the rotating Karsiyaka defense and allowing the extra pass to stay ahead of the scrambling defense. Also worth noting here is the one-dribble drive and kick from Obasohan to leave Adams completely wide open.

Jalen Adams has also been a huge factor for Hapoel Jerusalem. In the two videos below we see them using the GET then roll and replace action twice. We also see an important concept for this squad offensively. they love to flip the angle of ball screens late. This often forces the defense to switch in order to keep a man in front of the ball. Jalen Adams is proving to be a tough shot maker vs switches. Whereas his backcourt teammate Obasohan will take you to the rim, Adams is just as likely to create separation and create a shot off the dribble. He's averaging 17.8 points this season and shooting 45 percent from behind the arc on over 6 attempts. 

 Here he uses the step back against Amath M'Baye who is no slouch getting out to contest.

 Then, here he uses the stop-and-pop, pull-up against Tyus.

Of course, you don't shoot the second-most three's in the BCL with one guard taking over 6 per game, you need to have shooting all over your roster. Whilst the likes of Obasohan, Adams, Kilpatrick, Gates, Bennet and Braimoh will draw most of the attention on opposition scout reports (as they rightly should), you also really need to watch out for Jerusalem's Israeli contingent. Adam Ariel is attempting 4 a game and knocking them down at 35 percent. He also has one of the quickest releases in the BCL. This is exactly the type of player that has made telling contributions in knock-out games in the BCL historically. Don't be shocked if Jerusalem end up needing a big contribution from Ariel to successfully navigate the Play-In.  

Willy Workman is another fascinating player. We don't see many players that make it to a club like Hapoel Jerusalem after playing NCAA Div 3 but Workman did exactly that. He also did it by perfectly living up to his name. 4.6 points and 3.2 rebounds don't jump off the page when you read the box score but Workman has an unbelievable motor and is the kind of player that consistently comes up with winning plays. Also worth noting in the clip below is the pass from Itay Segev. 

One thing that has been clear from the start with this Jerusalem team is positive vibes in the squad. In interviews and media availability, players will always speak positively about their teammates as it makes sense to do so but when you have veterans like Sean Kilpatrick going out of their way to share on social media, you get a pretty clear idea that it's for real. This is a united team and they have are also developing a close relationship with the fans.

This chemistry is also something that Yotam Halperin feels could be a real difference-maker for the season. "I think this is a team of good guys, I believe at the end of the road this is what wins titles, good personalities and strong personalities, sometimes even more than Basketball," he said. Whilst reluctant to be drawn on commenting on a hard ceiling for this team or declaring any solid championship ambitions, Halperin is quietly confident that his squad is growing into a very good basketball team:

"We are still trying to find our chemistry and way of playing basketball but with the players we have, the fans that we have, and the club that we have - I must give some credit to Guy Harel and the club -  If we keep taking things step by step we are going to be fine."