CSKA vs. Budivelnik Kiev: 72-67 (+5)
Ettore Messina, CSKA head coach:
The game tonight was influenced by two horrible starts. In the first quarter we were down by 8 and in the beginning of the second half we burnt our 5-point lead, went down by 3 so we actually went minus 8 again. After that it was all about fight and hard work, but also about good things in life like desire and playing together. We got just another confirmation that we are still chasing our best condition, that we are still in process of becoming a good team.
Ainars Bagatskis, Budivelnik head coach:
As we expected the players did not need any extra motivation to play against CSKA. During the team meeting before the game I asked the players to be patient, to try to avoid long lapses. And I think most of the time we were able to execute the plan. The worst part was in the second quarter when some of our players were too busy to find some points for themselves. CSKA used that to run, they punished us for our mistakes. We had the same problems in the game against Fenerbahce. I would say that CSKA plays predictable, they wait for the opponents to make mistakes and run away immediately.
