Maccabi Tel Aviv will finish off their Euroleague home slate for 2020/21 with a date against Khimki Moscow at Yad Eliyahu at 18:00. The Yellow & Blue will look to end their continental campaign on a high note against the league’s last place team who at one point lost 16 straight games.

Head Coach Ioannis Sfaropoulos looked ahead to the clash which will most probably see a number of players that will feature for more minutes than normal which will most probably include Oz Blayzer, John Dibartolomeo, TJ Cline and perhaps some of the youngsters in Dori Sahar, Eidan Alber and Yonatan Atias, “We need to rest some players who’ve been playing a lot in this tight stretch. We need to be mentally ready to fight hard, to react and give happiness to our fans in our last EuroLeague home game of the season.”

Chris Jones, who is in his first season playing Euroleague ball also looked ahead to the final home game of the season, “We need to go in with our game plan, focus on the details, fight and be tough mentally for ourselves and for the club. We are looking forward to finishing the season on a strong note.”

“Khimki is another game and we have to come with a fighting spirit,” explained Elijah Bryant. “We want to show what we are capable of and respect the game that we are fortunate to play.”

On the other side of the court, Khimki who enter the clash with a 4-28 record have struggled mightily from the get this campaign after a number of players contracted the coronavirus early on the season as the team was never able to recover from their poor start.

Head coach Andrei Maltsev spoke about his team’s challenge, ”We are going to play our last two EuroLeague games and start in Tel Aviv against Maccabi. We want to show our game with good defense. We have examined Maccabi’s pros and cons; they are a very good and strong team with many individuals who can decide every game. Also, they have good big men with Zizic in the pivotal position with NBA experience. We are preparing for this game in a normal mode.”

Egor Vialtsev also spoke about their Maccabi test, “Maccabi is a fast team that likes playing fastbreaks and running on offense. They have many Americans who shoot three-pointers very well. They played a really great game against FC Barcelona recently having shown good defense, but lost to ASVEL [on Sunday]. They have enough athleticism and physicality, so for us, it will be a tough game. They play at home, but we want to show good basketball and take a win.”