The Israel Men’s National Basketball Team fell to Estonia 93-81 in an exhibition game played in Riga ahead of the 2025 Eurobasket. Head Coach Ariel Beit Halachmi’s team fell behind in the first quarter, managed to make a comeback to take a slim 46-45 lead by halftime but had a brutal third quarter and were outscored 27-15 as Estonia took the win. Roman Sorkin again led the team with 22 points, Deni Avdija continued to work off his rust and added 17 points of his own despite going 1/7 from beyond the arc while Eitan Burg finished the game with 10 points in the loss.

The blue-and-white grabbed a quick 6-0 lead with both Avdija and Tomer GInat picking up a pair of assists a piece but Estonia responded with an 11-1 run before Avdija and Khadeen Carrington each went from deep to close the gap to 21-20 after ten minutes of action. The Estonians continued to be much more aggressive under the basket and took a six-point lead, before Sorkin, Avdija and Burg who scored 9 points before halftime gave Israel a 46-45 advantage after 20 minutes of play.

Estonia came out firing on all cylinders especially from downtown to go up 72-61 by the end of the third period as Israel continued to struggle against the physicality of their opponent in the paint. The blue-and-white cut down the lead to 83-77 on points from Sorkin and Avdija but Estonia quelled the comeback to win by a dozen, 93-81 and drop Israel’s record to 1-1 with a pair of games coming up against Cyprus and Greece this weekend in Limassol.

Ariel Beit Halachmi spoke about the game, “We are at the beginning of our preparation games and the style we encountered here was different from what we played against Georgia. We are still in the stages of coming together and knowing what needs to be done including to improve our defensive rebounding. We tired in the middle of the third quarter, they made their run but all in all these games are very important for us. A lot of players featured and we played with certain lineups that are not always the best but that is what these games are for.”

Eitan Burg also reflected on the contest, “I think in terms of aggressiveness we weren’t there, we weren’t able to make the necessary adjustments. We played against a quality team that ran well and is very well-coached. We weren’t aggressive enough and we gave up 93 points, which is not ideal and not what Ariel intends for us to be, that’s first and foremost. Second, we need to do a better job on rebounding, pick up some more assists and if we do that I believe we’ll be better going forward.”