The Israel National Team is preparing in earnest for their World Cup qualifiers and the 2022 Eurobasket group stages in Prague which will take place beginning next Thursday in Finland. The Blue & White have two important exhibition games coming up against Romania on Tuesday and Thursday at the Drive In Arena after having just traveled to Georgia for a pair of contests against the hosts.

Israeli sensation Deni Avdija will be back for the upcoming clashes after having missed this past weekend’s games due to an illness but as head coach Guy Goodes said he will need to see how many minutes the Wizards forward will be able to play in the first game against the Romanians.

“Deni’s scheduled to play but let’s see tomorrow (gameday) how many he can actually play after being sick and having to sit at home for 4-5 days without doing anything. The last thing we want to have happen is an injury so we need to make sure that the minutes will be the correct amount and that also includes during practice. I hope that by Thursday he will play more as our goal is to integrate him into the roster of players that are here. We’ve had three games and he was dominant in the Auburn one which was a game that many important players were missing. Our test will be how we can adapt Deni’s talent to the National Team which will be the key to everyone going forward.”

The squad itself right now includes 16 players and will have to be reduced to 14 for the World Cup qualifiers and then down to 12 for the Eurobasket with no opportunity to be able to change players should their be an injury once the team starts play in Prague. With four players on the cusp of being cut from the team, veteran Tomer Ginat knows that the competition for the dozen slots is intense as it will go down to the wire.

“The competition is natural as there are only 12 spots and it’s never easy especially now with everyone here as we are all talented players and deserve to be here. It’s the coach’s job at the end of the day and we are coming here to do the best that we can in the practices and are less involved in the professional decisions. We will all do our utmost and the best that we can with the hope that we will make the final squad.”

Most important for Goodes will be the ability to find those 12 players who he can count on and these two games should give a very good indication of who will be first flying to Finland and then to Prague as he continues to work in various elements of play.

“I want to see us continuing to improve on the things we are working on and we don’t have that many practices up until the Finland game on the road. I think that before the games in Georgia we were going at a very good pace and we saw the results of that put into practice as to the way we played, how we distributed the ball and how we played in general. We have to continue this way and there are still some things we didn’t have time yet to work on which we want to ahead of the games against Finland and Sweden.”

“There are specific things that we want to work into our play but we don’t want to show too much that teams we are playing will be able to see ahead of the real games. We will split up the minutes and we want to see everyone which is what we did in the two games against Georgia and this is what we will do in the two games versus Romania.”

Ginat looked at the positives that came out of the two games in Georgia and what the team can take from them as they inch closer to the “real thing”, “We’ve been with each other for a bit now and we feel good as we build our chemistry. The trip to Georgia was very good, the games were played at a very high level and I think we really took a step forward. We saw some very good basketball on the offensive side and the collaboration with the players along with each one of us supporting the other which I believe is very important ahead of the games.”

While Georgia is a solid opponent who will be playing in the Eurobasket, Romania is only participating in the pre-qualifiers for the 2025 Eurobasket and is not considered to be a top notch team. Goodes expressed his disappointment in not being able to play higher level competition but sees these games coming up as a chance for his team to work on their own game.

“This will give us a chance to have an exhibition game which is better than 5 on 5 in practice while playing against ourselves. We tried to get into the high quality tournament in Greece which the Georgians are playing in but ultimately we couldn’t get into it due to the hosts and not because we didn’t want to be there as we would have said yes. Of course I would rather play in a tournament with top level national teams but this is what the situation is.”

“In the two games against Georgia we saw a different style, with bigger size and high end inside players who are at the top level of Europe as we worked on how to handle those situations. I don’t know much about the Romanians and we need to simply work on our things and not focus on the level of our opponent.”

Ginat also spoke about the quality of the competition coming up for Israel, “I don’t think that this is our issue at all and I have said that we don’t deal with anything outside of basketball. We are coming to work hard and into the games to do what we need to on the court in these two games against Romania that will help in our preparations. After we play them we will head out to the World Cup qualifiers and we want to do things as best as possible.”