CSKA vs. Anadolu Efes (Istanbul): 88-83 (+5)
CSKA: De Colo (9 + 4 as), Teodosic (20 + 9 as + 3 st + 5 to + 4 pf), Fridzon (10), Jackson (2), Weems (13 + 5 rb + 4 as), Vorontsevich (7 + 9 rb), Kaun (16 + 6 rb + 3 bs), Hines (11 + 6 rb)…
Anadolu Efes: Osman (6 + 3 rb), Perperoglou (14 + 4 pf), Saric (12 + 9 rb), Draper (14 + 3 rb + 4 pf), Krstic (13 + 6 rb), Lasme (5 + 3 rb), Janning (5), Huertel (10 + 9 as + 3 to), Bjelica (4 + 4 rb + 5 pf)…
Dimitris Itoudis, CSKA head coach:
We have just won another important game at home against great opponent. Probably the game was not as good as was expected. From the moment we went down 4-10, we started to defend better. Efes controlled the pace in the first quarter, ran primary and secondary fast breaks, beat us on our glass. Still in the second quarter we established the game, played a good zone and match-up zone defense. At halftime we had a conversation in the locker room pointing out that the opponents have a bad three-point percentage and good one from two-point distance, so you can expect them to play a lot of drive-and-kicks, as they like, and passes out of the paint, especially from Krstic. They made 6 of 7 threes in the end, but we managed to preserve our win. I’d like to thank our fans who came tonight and supported the team. I think we deserved to win despite the first quarter. It was a tough game, Efes is a great team, very well-coached by a great coach. I think it deserved our concentration for 40 minutes. Like I said, we had a very sloppy start in the first quarter, but managed to establish a better defensive game – also in the third quarter we managed to do that. They were very bad on threes, but came back in the second half and really made some tough shots. We expected them to do that and in the end we have won and deserved it. Congratulations to the team, the players and our fans for the great atmosphere.
Alexander Kaun, CSKA Moscow center:
I think we didn’t play good in the first half and especially in the first quarter, in which we allowed 27 points. I think this is something we have to fix. After that, we played a lot better defense and that’s the most important thing. We didn’t turn the ball over on offense and played defense. We got stops and played good basketball. They got a little closer at the end, but Efes is a good team. It is not easy to play against a big team. They played well, competed and this is what basketball is all about.
