Maccabi Tel Aviv visit Barcelona on Thursday (21:00) as the Yellow & Blue will look to continue on their Euroleague hot streak as they reach their season’s penultimate game. With a 15-11 record Avi Even’s team have already punched their ticket to the postseason as they will look to finish as high they can in the standings. Regardless of the results in the last two games, Maccabi will play a best of five quarter final series without home court advantage as they will finish the season in either 5th or most probably 6th place against either Real Madrid, Olympiacos or Milano.

However, ahead of the playoffs Maccabi has a stiff test on the road in Spain against arguably the continent’s best team in Saras Jasikevicius’s Barcelona and the Yellow & Blue and Even wants to make sure that his team finishes off the regular season properly.

“We want to finish off the regular season as best as we can and as high as we can in the standings. We will see who we play. We go into every game with the state of mind waning to win. We defeated Milano and Real Madrid at home and this will be a mental test on the road in Barcelona with the goal to win.”

While Maccabi will want to try and win at Barca they are also aware that it’s a very tall task ahead of them as Angelo Caloiaro explained, “We will try to play fast and slow them down, we want to get stops and push out on transition to get easy looks. It will be a fun game and they are in first place in the Euroleague for a reason.”

The Yellow & Blue have been on a good run over the last month playing a run and gun style of basketball that is not only pleasing to the eye but also to the players themselves who can get their offense going faster than a speeding bullet Jake Cohen said.

“Our versatility is really good too and we have a lot of weapons. Our big guys have done a great job over the last few weeks establishing themselves inside and the ball movement has been great. We have guys like Scottie and James who can fill it up from outside and I’m really pleased with how we are playing right now, but Barcelona is a tough place to play and they are a really good team. We will have our work cut out for us.”

Maccabi will definitely have their work cut out for them as Cohen said because not only is Barcelona at the top of the standings they are also a superb home team that makes few if any mistakes on the court that will cost them over the course of the 40 minutes.

“Barcelona is a very good home team,” Even noted. “We didn’t have so much time to prepare but we did get ready and every team has pluses and minuses. We will have to be smart enough to go after their weaknesses so we can be as good as possible and win this game.”

Win or lose, Maccabi will still be playing in the postseason, but of course they would like to make sure that the momentum that they have had over the last while continues along even if Even’s squad does fall. Right now it’s still about jelling together under a new coach and trying to peak at just the right time in order to raise some eyebrows in the quarterfinals no matter who they play.

“We want to continue to get better, work and prepare for the playoffs,” Caloiaro commented. “We want to work out way up. We’ll play either Milano, Olympiacos or Real Madrid and they’re all tough teams so it doesn’t matter which team we will get as they are all good. We have to worry about ourselves and get better.”

An upbeat Cohen also continued about getting into shape for the postseason which is right around the corner, “It’s a great opportunity for us to have the playoffs secured but we know that it’s going to be a good test to prepare for the playoffs and see how we will do against the team with the number one record.”

Even will also want to ensure that regardless of the result, the players are in the right shape of mind as the team inches closer and closer to the promised land.

“We aren’t looking at other results and we are focusing on Barcelona. We are putting all of our energy in being the best we can and how we can win. As a club we have to have the confidence and we have won a number of games in a row right now. We need to to go into every game with the right energy.”