We need it more

Visiting Zalgiris proved to be one of the most difficult opponents for CSKA this season. But Kaunas side almost lost the chances to qualify.

The Lithuanian team is placed 6th in Group E, trails Panathinaikos by 2 wins and CSKA by 3. Still in the 4 games left the Greeks will play outsiders from Germany and taking into account two wins against Zalgiris that means that the Athens side can feel itself comfortable. Surprisingly the chance to catch CSKA seems more realistic but it also means that red-blues should fall apart losing all 4 games or just 3 but the one to Zalgiris with 14+ margin. And you should not forget about Unicaja! From the other side CSKA desperately tries to get back into Top 2 to guarantee home-court advantage for the playoffs.

“It will be a very important game for us,” CSKA head coach Ettore Messina said. “We met three times this season and we know that it was always difficult for us to fight them on rebounds and in some special situations. But we will prepare well. We want to continue showing good basketball as we did in previous games and try to win this one.”

After the win against Lokomotiv-Kuban army men had a day-off on Monday and got back to usual practices. There no injured or ill players on the team.