After the home loss on Friday, the Israeli team has the opportunity to correct tonight (Monday, 20:30, live broadcast on 5 SPORT) against Germany. This time it will be at Heidelberg, and Guy Goodes and his players will try to avoid a double loss in the current window. “It’s not easy to play again against the same team, but it’s the format and needs to be tackled,” he said Idan Zalmanson. “Another game against the same opponent will give us an estimate about ourselves, to see that we have improved compared to the previous game.”
Both teams came to tonight’s game with different staffs, and the change for the Germans is particularly significant: Coach Gordy Herbert will benefit from the joining of three Euroleague players, Maudo Lou and Johannes Teman from Alba Berlin and Andreas Obes from Bayern Munich. The Israeli team was joined by Tamir Blatt, who has been very central to the team’s successes in recent years, and in the European Championship qualifiers he averaged 8.5 points and 8.2 assists. Tonight, it will be his first game in the national uniform under Goodes.
“Tamir is an excellent player and they also have good players. But it does not matter, because there is no vacuum in basketball,” Zalmanson added. “I’m sure everyone who plays will do the job. We’ll have to come up with a good mentality in the hope that it will help us win.”
One of the issues that was emphasized in the team is the issue of threes. The blue-and-white players scored only 6 of those (from just 14 shots). Who will have to raise his level is one of the key players of the team, Jake Cohen, who looked tired on Friday and scored 5 points in 13 minutes. Even from Max Heidegger, who made a very lukewarm debut (0 points), there are expectations to be much more significant.
Zalmanson concluded: “We need a little more confidence in ourselves, because in the last game we were less focused. For this game we had a few more days to prepare and I am sure we will arrive with a little more confidence and more connected. It is a very important game and we are all aware of that.”
