Traditions above all

The route useful for our team will continue tomorrow when the Euroleague quarterfinal series starts. CSKA won all the playoff series historically and the team will try hard to support the tradition against Caja Laboral.

After defeating Panathinaikos in the last game of Top 16 the army men had just one day off and started their preparations for the playoffs. The team practices with full roster except for Alexander Gudumak and Dmitry Korshakov who are busy with the junior team.

“Vitoria historically had excellent teams“, CSKA head coach Ettore Messina said. ”They have tradition, club philosophy which is obviously something we have to respect. They are not newcomers for this level. Caja Laboral has true vocal leaders like Nocioni but it has also silent leaders like San Emeterio or Cook. They have several key players like Lampe or the young kid Nemanja Bjelica who is one of the most talented players in Europe on 4 position. They have a very good team, which has size and talent. And they deserved to win the big games of Top 16, especially the most important one against Khimki on a very hot court. Many people say that we are CSKA, we have the home-court advantage and we are already in the Final Four. It is a big mistake to think like this. It is important to work game by game to try to receive the result, that’s what I always did in my life. Let’s start with Game 1 and we will see.”