UNICAJA MALAGA (SPAIN)

Founded in 1992
Team colors: green, white, purple
Honors: EuroCup (2017), Korac Cup (2001), Spanish National League (2006), Spanish National Cup (2005)
Arena: Palacio de Deportes Jose Maria Martin Carpen (capacity – 11300)
President: Eduardo Garcia Lopez
Official website: www.unicajabaloncesto.com

Where to watch

LIVE: Match TV (21:55), Match! Igra (21:55; replay — 03:15, December 15 at 10:30), EuroLeague TV, Sportbox.ru
Text online: EuroLeague website

GAME NOTES

Unicaja Malaga and BC Khimki have never met in a EuroLeague game before.

Stefan Markovic played for Unicaja Malaga for two seasons. He played under Coach Plaza and was a teammate with Carlos Suarez and Mo Soulade during 2014/2015 and with Suarez, Alberto Diaz, Daniel Diez and Nemanja Nedovic in 2015/2016.

Markovic and Nedovic were teammates on the Serbian national team and won the silver medal at the 2016 Olympic Games.

Unicaja center James Augustine played four seasons for BC Khimki from 2012 to 2016. He helped the team win the 2015 EuroCup, together with Tyler Honeycutt, Sergey Monya and Egor Vyaltsev. He was also a teammate there with Marko Todorovic and Alexey Shved during the 2015/2016 season.

Unicaja’s Giorgi Shermadini played under current BC Khimki Coach Georgios Bartzokas at Olympiacos Piraeus in the second part of the 2012/2013 season. They won the EuroLeague together.

Shermadini and Malcolm Thomas were frontcourt mates at Maccabi Tel Aviv for the first part of 2012/2013 season.

PRE-GAME QUOTES

Georgios Bartzokas, BC Khimki head coach:

“Unicaja is a team that plays with a lot of energy, pressing the ball and using a lot of different things to minimize the offensive game of their opponents. Coach Plaza has been working for many years with this team; he passed his own philosophy to the team. Although they have only three wins in the EuroLeague, they fought in every game even with the biggest European clubs. So, we expect nothing more that a very difficult game. It’s all about the rhythm of the game; we need to minimize our turnovers, control the rebounds and think possession by possession till the end”.

James Anderson, BC Khimki guard:

“We expect a hard-fought game. They are a very competitive team with a lot of experienced players. Definitely, it will be a challenge for us to get a win on a road. After tough game with Nizhny Novgorod some guys are tired physically, but mentally we got a step prepared fighting with injuries and with the fatigue trying to get a win. I think our defense is the key for one coming out, being aggressive and playing defense sticking to the scout. So, I think we’ll put ourselves in a good position to get a win”.