The Israel National Team will face Greece in Eurobasket Round of 16 action on Sunday (21:45) as the blue-and-white will look to punch their ticket to the quarterfinal round. While the Greeks will come in as heavy favorites due to Vassilis Spanoulis\u2019s squad having one of the world\u2019s best basketball players in the universe in Giannis Antetokounmpo, Yovel Zoosman feels that his team can find a way to record a stunning upset.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn any given day, the game can go either way. Obviously, when they have Giannis, Sloukas, and Spanoulis as coach. If we come in humble and do our job, without giving them all the respect they deserve, because they do, but on the court, we\u2019ll fight for every second, it could end up in our favor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ll need to keep the score low,\u201d Zoosman continued. \u201cWhen we\u2019ve managed that, we’ve had better games. Against Slovenia it was very hard as they scored 106 points. Even against Belgium, which wasn\u2019t supposed to be that tough of a game, they scored 87 on us and that made things very difficult. If we can hold them to around 70-80 points and treat every offensive and defensive possession as the most important moment in the game, it can lead to a close game and maybe in our favor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finland was able to shock Serbia which is a team that has Nikola Jokic, a 3x NBA MVP and one-time champ which does give Israel and Zoosman hope that they can stop 2x NBA MVP and NBA title holder Antetokounmpo despite coming up short against Luka Doncic.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiannis is a bit bigger physically than Luka (Doncic), plays bigger positions. It\u2019s a team effort, the whole team has to do it together. We know his strengths and he knows what he can bring to the table. We can’t do the obvious and predictable traps, we need to work the right way. In the end, I believe that the refs will call around 25 fouls, more or less and if we commit 15, they\u2019ll call 25; if we commit 45, they\u2019ll still call 25. That\u2019s the direction we need to go in.\u201d<\/p>\n
A familiar face for Zoosman will be Tyler Dorsey who he played with at Maccabi Tel Aviv in the past and has been one of the key spark plugs for Greece, \u201cHe\u2019s a very good player and a great shooter. Our job with him is to not give him daylight, not give him open looks. If we do that well, it’ll be easier for us. I think he’s been shooting over 50% in the tournament and that\u2019s extraordinary. We hope to do a good job on him. We have good defenders who can get that done.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for himself, Zoosman will do his best in order to give his team the best chance to win although he has had an up and down tournament, \u201cI do what\u2019s needed. I come to give everything I have and I don\u2019t make faces. I\u2019ve never been like that and I won\u2019t start now. Whatever the coach wants I\u2019ll do whether it’s on the bench or on the court. I do the things that are in my control. That\u2019s why we\u2019re here. We passed the first hurdle, reaching the Round of 16 and now every game is win or go home. We have players with experience and a lot of knowledge on the court, we hope to bring that onto the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Israel National Team will face Greece in Eurobasket Round of 16 action on Sunday (21:45) as the blue-and-white will look to punch their ticket to the quarterfinal round. While the Greeks will come in as heavy favorites due to Vassilis Spanoulis\u2019s squad having one of the world\u2019s best basketball players in the universe in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":154752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-154760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-land-hoops","tag-israel","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n