Maccabi Tel Aviv is readying to host Panathinaikos for game 3 at the Pionir Arena in Belgrade at their “home away from home” as tip-off is slated for 8pm Israel time.

The yellow-and-blue came away from Athens with a split in the opening two games of the series with Oded Katash’s squad taking game one and Ergin Ataman’s team winning game two. Maccabi will probably be without Wade Baldwin who incurred a hamstring injury in the 4th quarter of the series opener while PAO won’t have the services of Juancho Hernangomez who remained back in Greece due to an injury as well.

Ioannis Papapetrou, who was a key component in Panathinaikos’s game two win and caused Maccabi all kinds of matchup problems due to his size spoke ahead of the third game about the mindset that his club is coming into the matchup.

“We are very confident and we can play on the road, we are confident in our preparation for this game. Maccabi is a very tough team and they proved this against us. They are aggressive and they will punish us for every mistake we will make and score an easy basket. We have to be very careful and committed.”

A reserved Ataman who was fined a total of 35,000 Euros for his comments about the referees after game one as well as his handling of the media, knows that game three is pivotal but it will also not be the deciding contest in this series.

“It’s the playoffs and all of the series are 1-1 except for Real Madrid so this will be an important game. We made a lot of mistakes in the first game and missed a lot of free throws. Game three will be a new game, but no one will lose or advance to the Final Four as you need to win three games. Maccabi is a very good team especially offensively and play very good basketball but we also have a lot of confidence.”

With questions in the air about Wade Baldwin’s availability, Papapetrou and Panathinaikos will be looking more at how they are preparing than what Maccabi will throw at them, “Baldwin is a great player and has been very good for them. If they don’t have him they will need to adjust, but we have to focus on us.”

The Greek squad will be without their fans for the upcoming two games as Pionir will host roughly 1,000 Maccabi supporters who flew in from Israel for the clashes. Luca Vildoza noted that the Green supporters will most definitely be missing, “For sure, we go there to win. We know it will be hard because they have been playing well lately. We won the last game and we have the confidence to win the next two in a row. In OAKA we have our people, they are very loud. Playing without fans will not be the same, but we have to motivate ourselves to play like a normal game. Playing the playoffs is a big deal for us.”