Maccabi Tel Aviv announced on Wednesday that it will play the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Clippers during October in two preseason exhibition games.
Maccabi will face the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on October 18, and will face the Clippers in Los Angeles two days later in what will be the 20th time it faces an NBA team.
Tel Aviv has beaten five NBA teams in the past and became the first international side to ever defeat a NBA side on North American soil, beating the Toronto Raptors 105-103 in 2005.
Maccabi lost to the Knicks in a pre-season game in 2007 and played four exhibition games against NBA sides in 2006, losing to the San Antonio Spurs, Phoenix Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers and Toronto Raptors.
Both games this year come as part of Maccabi’s support of the Migdal Ohr organization, which provides shelter and education for over 6,500 abused, impoverished and orphaned children in Israel.
A couple of items, the first an ethical question: Does it demonstrate dual loyalties to root for Maccabi? Second, I wish the game were in Tel Aviv just to imagine DeAndre Jordan and Chris Kaman interacting with a population of really intense, attitudinal Jews.
