BC Khimki Moscow Region will try to extend its Euroleague season when it hosts undefeated Group H leader Olympiacos Piraeus on Thursday.
Watch BC Khimki Moscow v Olympiacos Piraeus live on SportingBet's live streaming service, from 19:15 CET today.
Khimki must win to have a chance to advance to the Quarterfinal Playoffs, where it would encounter Russian League rival CSKA in the best-of-five series. A loss ends Khimki’s season.
If Khimki wins and Cibona beats Caja Laboral in Thursday’s other Group H game, Khimki will finish second with a 3-3 record. If Khimki wins and Laboral beats Cibona, second place would be decided by tiebreaker. In this case, since Khimki and Laboral were equal in wins and points in their two head-to-head meetings, it would come down to total margin of victory in the Top 16.
Laboral starts the game with a minus-18 margin, while Khimki is at minus-24. Accordingly, Khimki would have to beat Olympiacos by at least 7 points more than Laboral beat Cibona to climb into second place in such a situation.
Scoring a lot of points is possible against the Reds, but stopping the league’s No. 1 attack is quite difficult. Olympiacos boasts a 10-game winning streak and has a deep bench that is difficult to wear down.
The Reds hammered Khimki 87-69 behind 15 points from Yotam Halperin when they met last month in Greece. Head coach Sergio Scariolo hands the keys to his offense to point guard Raul Lopez and Carlos Cabezas, who share the playmaking duties. They are joined by scorer Keith Langford and feisty reserve Viyaly Fridzon in the Khimki backcourt. Olympiacos counters with Milos Teodosic, Theo Papaloukas and Scoonie as playmakers and Halperin and Patrick Beverley at shooting guard. Khimki’s glue player, Kelly McCarty, will draw a tough defensive assignment against at small forward against the high-flying Josh Childress.
In the paint, Khimki turns to centers Robertas Javtokas and Timofey Mozgov and power forwards Paulius Jankunas and Fedor Dmitriev. Olympiacos, which will be without Ioannis Bourousis as he recovers from injury, leans on scoring ace Linas Kleiza at power forward and Nikols Vujcic, Loukas Mavrokefalides and Sofoklis Schortsanitis, who has been hot lately, at center.
After allowing just 73.3 points per game in the regular season, the Khimki defense has surrendered 80.8 per game in the Top 16. And Olympiacos averages 90.6 points per game. As a result, the Khimki defense must be at its best to limit the Reds and have a chance at winning and reaching the playoffs. All signs point to a high-scoring, drama-filled battle as Khimki goes for broke for a much-needed win.
