The Israeli national team ended last night (Monday) the 2023 World Championship qualifying campaign with an away victory 79:87 over the Slovenian national team. The team, which three months ago already lost a chance to advance to the championship that will be held in the summer, finished the home in fifth place with four wins and eight losses. Israel received an excellent performance last night from three players who also looked very good in the dramatic loss to Finland at the weekend at Hall Shlomo. Nimrod Levy scored 20 points, Bar Timor added 18 points and 6 assists and Noam Yaakov Hatzair in his debut appearances in the team also scored 18 points, added 7 rebounds and 7 assists.
“I felt good, I felt that this was the moment, things came together, the guys pushed and cheered. Today Zeli (Zalmanson) told me to stop looking to the side and start taking charge, it also pushed me,” concluded Timur, “”It was very important. Last week it was very important for us to be together and have fun, play good basketball and win. There was an amazing atmosphere, from the team, Nadav and the players, we really wanted to win, the way the game developed and we showed a lot of character, I’m very happy even though it’s insignificant, we’ll take it the rest of the way.”
“It was very important for us to win this game,” said captain Tomer Ginat, “We came into this week with incredible energy, it felt good from the first moment, we love each other very much. We wanted to win the last game of this campaign. Happy for everyone. It It was important to us on many levels. We will take it further, and the future will look good.”
When the captain was asked about whether the team could have reached the World Championship, he said: “We could have done it, and we should have done it. Considering the circumstances, we came to the window knowing that the games were unimportant, we treated the games in an excellent way, Nadav and the team prepared us in an excellent way, we missed Finland at the last second And we wanted to end the campaign with a sweet taste. With the confidence and energy we knew how to do it at the end.”
The team will now turn to the important decision on the appointment of the coach for the following tasks – the pre-Olympic tournament qualifiers this August and the Eurobasket qualifiers starting in November. The goal is to appoint a coach in the next month.
The one who coached the team in recent months, interim coach Nadav Zilberstein, won a lot of praise in the basketball association and among the team’s players for his work in recent times, for the fact that he knew how to capture the ranks during a time when the team could fall apart, as well as for the credit he gave to young Noam Yaakov. “Nadav could have gone for the familiar and the safe, but he let Noam play, gave him the keys and he returned it to him,” praised one of the union members last night, “we lacked forward vision in this campaign and at least we finished with a good step.”