Partizan in “Aleksandar Nikolić” arena against Lietuvos Rytas (@EuroCup)

Serbian basketball club Partizan NIS will host Lietuvos Rytas in second round of the EuroCup in “Aleksandar Nikolić” arena at 8 p.m., today, October 18th.

In the first round both teams lost: Partizan as a guest in Berlin against Alba (111 – 85) and team from Vilnius as a host against Spanish club Bilbao Basket with a score 83 – 93.

Black and whites, in the first round, committed 23 turnovers against German team, and Nigel Williams-Goss and Patrick Miller had together 12 turnovers. Preventing that will be the first step in order for Serbian team to try to win the game and Partizan also relies on these two American point guards to lead the team against guests from Lithuania. Both Miller and Williams-Goss can create a good opportunity for their team mates and in the first game they have combined 9 assists.

At the other side, two very good ball handlers Chris Kramer and Mindaugas Lukauskis who rarely make mistakes will be direct opponents of black and whites guards. But main threat in the low post for hosts will be Loukas Mavrokefalidis, so Marko Pecarski and Đoko Šalić will have to be very careful in defence because they will have a tough task.

Both Lietuvos Rytas and Partizan have issues in defense because they both allowed more than 90 points in the first round, and Lithuanian team will have to be able to stop Vanja Marinković, great one-on-one player who can score from every position, so his guards will have to pay extra attention not leaving him alone.

Partizan will have home advantage, and because both teams are coming from basketball countries they are very well aware of the atmosphere and how home crowd can help their team to win. Arena “Aleksandar Nikolić” will be full and fans will be active during the whole game, as they usually are.

This Monday, Partizan signed a new centre Samardo Samuels but he won’t be able to play against Rytas due to basketball rules and it is good news for guests. But for the next game he will be ready to help his new team.

Samuels signed the contract till the end of the season. He played for two years in Olimpia Milan and one in Barcelona from 2013 till 2016, but last year he spent most in China with Jiangsu Dragons and finished the season in Italy with Enel Brindisi. During his professional career, veteran also played for Cleveland in the NBA.