Pre-game breakdown
The Army Men spent a night in Athens after the win against Olympiacos. The team used Saturday to travel and rest. The only pre-game practice took place on Sunday night.
Mikhail Kulagin (foot) is out for CSKA.
Khimki will be without Anthony Gill (back). Alexey Shved is back to the team, he had double-double vs Olimpia Milan. Jordan Mickey got injured in the same game. Also the club said goodbye to Dee Bost and signed Andrew Harrison.
Referees
Sasa Pukl (Slovenia, crew chief), Marcin Kowalski (Poland), Ilya Putenko (Russia).
Pre-game quote
Dimitris Itoudis, CSKA head coach:
We play our biggest rival that has one extra day to prepare and they did not travel. We have less time and we have to carry the load but we know how to do it. As I said, it is a rivalry, Khimki have very talented team, we know each other well, so we will focus on our game plan.
Close relations
Khimki players Alexey Shved, Sergey Monia and Egor Vialtsev all played for CSKA. Shved played parts of seven seasons for CSKA between 2005 and 2012 and won the 2008 EuroLeague with the club. Monia spent three seasons with CSKA and Vialtsev two. Rimas Kurtinaitis played for CSKA in the 1981-82 season.
Dimitris Itoudis coached Khimki guard Stefan Markovic two seasons ago in Turkey at Banvit Bandirma.
Markovic was a teammate of CSKA guard Nando De Colo during the 2011-12 season at Valencia Basket. The backcourt duo helped Valencia reach the EuroCup championship game that season.
Khimki forward Petr Gubanov and his CSKA counterpart Semen Antonov were teammates at Nizhny Novgorod during the 2013-14 season.
Past matchups
Wins-losses: 88-18.
CSKA biggest win: 104-64 (+40) (2002-03 Superleague Regular Season)
CSKA biggest loss: 85-67 (-18) (2007-08 Russian Cup Final)
Games of 2018-19 season:
13-Dec-2018. EuroLeague. Regular Season. CSKA – Khimki: 88-74 (+14)
14-Jan-2019. VTB League. Regular Season. CSKA – Khimki: 75-65 (+10)
Short dossier
Khimki Moscow Region
Founded: 1997
Colors: blue, yellow
Home court: Moscow Region Basketball Center (3,500), Arena Mytishchi (7,000)
President: Dmitry Golubkov
CEO: Pavel Astakhov
Head coach: Rimas Kurtinaitis
Website: www.bckhimki.ru
Trophy Case: 2-time Eurocup winners (2012, 15), Russian Cup winner (2008), VTB United League champion (2011), 9-time Russian League runner-up (2006, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18), Russian League bronze winner (2007), Russian Cup finalist (2006), FIBA-Europe Cup finalist (2006), Eurocup finalist (2009)
