The Israel National Team defeated Portugal 72-70 to win their opening 2025 Eurobasket qualifier. The blue-and-white had all kinds of trouble in Lisbon after Roman Sorkin went down with a knee injury as Yam Madar and Tomer Ginat along with Bar Timor were able to overcome fine performances by Travante Williams and Ruben Prey to hang on for the victory.

Following the game the National team announced that Sorkin will return to Israel on Friday and won’t be available for the game in Slovenia on Sunday.

Madar scored 16 points and dished out 5 assists, Ginat added 17 points and Timor scored 9 points in the win. Williams scored 18 points, Diogo Brito chipped in with 12 points and Prey scored 10 points in the loss.

“The main thing is that we won,” Israel Head Coach Ariel Beit Halachmi said. “We knew that the game wouldn’t be easy and we’ve seen them before. They are a team that makes it very difficult with their style and toughness. We had a lot of turnovers, but I’ll take the last 50 seconds of the game when we brought our character and left here with a victory, that’s the most important thing.”

“We proved that we can play with any team and that we can make it to the EuroBasket,” Portugal coach Mario Gomes said. “We are at the level and we proved it. We could have won if we scored one more 3-pointer. In order to win at this level we have to play our best and we didn’t.”

Rafi Menco added, “It’s not easy to play here in this arena and you can say that zteh game was a complete mess. This was an important victory and a good start, but we must improve. We came into the game knowing that it depended on us and there was not too much time to practice. In any case, we will have to improve day by day because there is not much time to practice together.”

Travante Williams also spoke about the game, “It was a great game, nice fans and put on a good show but 2/21 from 3 pt line and that tells the story of the game. We have some great players on this team and we can do better than that. We have to be more focussed on the moment and we have a tough team so we have to have to have more discipline and be accountable for that, In those moments we have to be more focussed.”

Yovel Zoosman went from deep while Roman Sorkin scored inside for Israel but Travante Williams and Miguel Queiroz countered for Portugal but points by Tomer Ginat kept the score even at 10-10 midway through the first quarter. Gonzalo Delgado found the bottom of the basket as did Diogo Cruz for the hosts the blue-and-white their free throws while Iftach Ziv dunked to knot the score up at 19-19 after ten minutes of play.

Itay Segev put in an offensive rebound, Ziv jammed again and Rafi Menco went from deep, Quieroz and Rafael Lisboa countered, Ginat and Yam Madar scored but Diogo Brito went from the outside and inside as Israel went halftime nursing a 38-36 advantage.

Quieroz and Williams scored for Portugal, Menco and Ginat both went from deep, Madar added a layup, Timor scored and Menco hit his free throws to give Israel a 56-53 lead after thirty minutes of action.

Brito began the fourth quarter with points, Ginat responded, Noam Yaacov put in a 3-point play, Quieroz answered right back, Madar scored, Ruben Prey came back with a trio of baskets, Ginat scored off the backboard, Timor went in and scored a floater, Prey dunked but Israel hung on to win by 2-points as they now ready for Slovenia.