Pregame quotes of the Khimki – Partizan matchup.
Sergio Scariolo: “We know the importance of this game. I am sure the team will give 100 percent to prolong the concentration from 30-35 minutes to 40 minutes. The fans’ support will be especially important. We respect our opponent a lot as a great traditional team that is at a high level and very ambitious proved by the fact they signed a contract with a new good player. Partizan is a mixture of talent and experience along with a couple of real European basketball stars.”
Zoran Planinic: “We are in a tough situation in Euroleague right now: we have to win at least three games to qualify for the Top 16. Our first aim is to win the game with Partizan. It is especially important for us because we lost in Belgrade in the last seconds, but had a good chance to win. Now we will play at our home court. I’m sure everyone will do everything to win this game because we have to do it. It will not be easy. We have to play more aggressively. Partizan has played the same model of game throughout last six or seven years: They play tough, aggressively, fight, and will try to act well in defense. I think everyone in Partizan’s roster is a hard opponent. We’ll try to meet them fully armed.”
Vlade Jovanovic: “After the first leg and the win against Zalgiris at home, now we have three wins on the road ahead of us and it will be a tough part for us. The first one is against Khimki. The situation now is different than when we first met. We handed them an unexpected loss and they will surealy want to make up for that. I think they have less wins than they expected by now and I am sure that most of their plans are based on winning all the homes games. I think their roster is very balanced and I expect them to be at full power and with lots of motivation. The possibility of us travelling to Russia without a point guard and their motivation worries me right now. We have a team that can win this game, but we will have to be concentrated during the 40 minutes to do that.”
Jan Vesely: “We expect a very hard game. We are motivated and we will play hard to win. That is what the coach asks us to do every week and we have to try to accomplish it.”
