Khalid El-Amin sunk a buzzer-beating triple in the first matchup between the sides in Vitoria, to give Lietuvos Rytas a sensational victory. However, the team from Vilnius will have to repeat what they have already done this season and El-Amin is confident that Lietuvos Rytas is strong enough to achieve this goal.
“The fact we can overwrite history motivates us even further. We want to be the players to have achieved something Lietuvos Rytas hasn’t before and we will fight for the entire forty minutes to lead the team to the playoffs for the first time,” said Lietuvos Rytas guard Khalid El-Amin, who has taking the leadership of the team on his back recently.
With Lietuvos Rytas playing considerably better at home, this will definitely be a huge boost to the team and the player agrees that playing at home brings that extra bit of confidence too.
“I think it will be an exciting game. We understand that the game on Thursday will be a do-or-die match, it will be real war. And we are feeling good about it as we’re going to play at home. We are really thrilled and the guys are ready to go further,” El-Amin.
Lietuvos Rytas head coach Aleksandr Trifunovic thinks that his team still has some unused tricks in the bag and their best game is still to come.
“I think we haven’t played our best game yet and we have some extra reserves. We’ll fight against a strong opponent with great Euroleague and Spanish finals experience. We’ll try to show our fans what we can do best and achieve the victory,” coach Trifunovic said, who thinks that the key to success is playing as a team.
“In all the games that we won, team spirit and unity was the main factor and we’re going to have to play just like that against Caja Laboral. It will decide the game. Our last victory was decided by the effort from all of the players. No matter how much a player spent on the court, he brought something good on the court. We have 10-12 players, who can play at this level and this is our advantage,” Trifunovic noted.
