CSKA vs. Zalgiris Kaunas: 95-82 (+13)
Jonas Kazlauskas, CSKA head coach:
I can’t say that the game was easy mentally. We missed Lavrinovic and Kirilenko who played key roles in our first meeting in Kaunas. Besides, Zalgiris has nothing to lose, so it was clear that they will fight until the end. We played more on offense tonight. When they were coming close, we were tightening the defense, making a run and focusing on offense again. Now I am trying to limit myself in my estimations. Probably I am asking too much out of my team. It is obvious we can not score 2 points more every minute; we can not win with a margin of 20 points every game. It’s the Euroleague competition and there are no easy game here.
Alexandar Trifunovic, Zalgiris head coach:
CSKA is one of three best teams in the Euroleague right now, and I will be surprised if they miss the Final Four, with Kirilenko or without him. We had our problems, obviously not on offense where we scored 82 points. We did not finish our job on Teodosic and Shved who are the main creators for CSKA. Shved made huge improvement this season, as for Teodosic – he is probably the best on his position in Europe right now. When you give them freedom, too much space, they will beat you, especially with Krstic inside. You should be ready physically and mentally. Besides we lost on ball pressure and rebounding. We gave CSKA too much second and even third chances. I think our schedule is very difficult right now. We play 8 away games out of 10 on this period, so we do not have time to work on our game carefully.
