From beginning

The trip to Athens is the second one for our team this season. The goals are still very important: the game against Olympiakos will show how CSKA focused on the Euroleague Top 16.

“Everything starts from the very beginning in Top 16”, - CSKA head coach Jonas Kazlauskas said. “It is important for us to forget all the successes we had in the regular season, because otherwise we will be in trouble. I used to work with Olympiakos so I know pretty well how strong they are on their home court, in front of their fans. I am sure that we should expect very difficult game, as difficult as we had against Panathinaikos in Athens. Olympiakos is an elite team, one of Greek grands. It has promising young players as well as classy veterans. Spanoulis stands alone between them. As we see this season, Vassilis holds the threads of team’s game, the result depends on him. So the defense against Spanoulis is the key to the game.”

Nenad Krstic who missed the previous game vs Spartak St.Petersburg because of illness joined his teammates this week. Still coaches decided not to risk and took 13 players to the Greek capitol, leaving Nikita Kurbanov and Sammy Mejia at home.