OUR OPPONENT

VALENCIA BASKET (SPAIN)

Founded in 1986
Team colors: orange, purple, white
Honors: Eurocup (2003, 2010, 2014), Copa del Rey de Baloncesto (1998), Copa del Rey de Baloncesto finalist (2000, 2006, 2013), Liga ACB finalist (2003)
Arena: Pabellon Fuente De San Luis (capacity – 9000)
President: Vicente J. Solà Sanz
Official website: www.valenciabasket.com

PRE-GAME QUOTES

Rimas Kurtinaitis, BC Khimki head coach:

"Frankly speaking I didn’t expect that Valencia would crush FC Bayern Munich so easily. I was anticipating an interesting battle but it turned to be another way. We have last year's experience and know how to play on the road. Therefore, we’ll try not to repeat the same mistakes when we went to Valencia having thought we would have played slightly not to lose many points as we had a return home game. However, everyone knows the end of this story. Now we go to Valencia to win a game. If you want to achieve minimum you have to set maximum task to raise this standard at once. We know what we are fighting for and have experience although our roster has changed and we don’t have some players who played for Khimki last season. We have the goal to win Eurocup and have to win Valencia now. We are keeping our plan so far and going to our goals".

Paul Davis, BC Khimki center:

"It’s gonna be a hard series, a game there and a game here but we know what happened last year and we don’t want to make the same mistakes. The most important game is the one tomorrow. We are ready and everybody feels good going to Spain. We need to have the best outcome so we can come back here and play too. In general, in Spain they play probably a different game than in Russia, as Spanish teams are very fast, especially the guards. They gonna be running all 40 minutes and we need to be ready to match their intensity. Valencia has a pretty good season but they have a new coach. They have always been a tough team and they have goals just as we do. They have many experienced players as some guys have been playing together for couple of years. It’s not gonna be a 20-point difference but 5 or 10 points either way. The biggest thing for me is to help the team now because last season I watched the games from the sidelines, which wasn’t a lot of fun. This year we have one goal to go there and win and to come back and finish the series".