CSKA leading in series

Today Moscow Army team played in the first quarterfinal game of Russian Championship. Games against Rimas Girskis teams are last official preparations to the Euroleague Final Four. But this game became not easy for CSKA:


CSKA vs Lokomotiv Rostov: 90-81

This time Dusan Ivkovic put to the starting five new players: Sergey Monya and Dragan Tarlac. But it is hard to say that these substitutions were good for our team. Serbian center scored first 4 points, and then he too quickly received 3 fouls and was substitute to Victor Alexander. Our defense was not good in the first half. 1 minute to the end of the quarter Lokomotiv get leadership: 19-20. Rostov team could hold it to the end of quarter: 22-25.

After the first rest Ivkovic substituted Sergey Monya to Anton Yudin. But after arriving of third guard our defense did not became to be better. On the fourth minute after good throw of Gennadiy Silantiev Lokomotiv advantage was 6 points already: 29-35. The head coach of CSKA took time-out and put to the parquet Theodoros Papaloukas and Sergey Panov. Only after it our defense became much better. Our team made 16-0 spurt: 47-36. Only in the end of the quarter Andrey Cipachev could make our advantage smaller: 51-45.

In the middle of the third quarter our advantage was 16 points already. But after getting it CSKA stopped. Lokomotiv who has felt it tried to catch up our team. Tompson and Nesterov made it smaller. But one of leaders of club Silantiev scored fifth foul and went to the bench.

In the last quarter it was likely that both teams just finishing the game. In our squad probably only Papaloukas and Bashminov scored points. Not showing something special CSKA could get this victory: 90-81. Today series will continue at 13:30 CET in Sport Hall Dynamo.