Real Madrid vs. CSKA: 88-93 (+5)
Real Madrid: Causeur (0), Randolph (7 + 3 as), Campazzo (23 + 2 as + 3 st), Tavares (1 + 3 rb + 2 bs), Taylor (4) – start; Fernandez (18 + 3 rb + 2 as), Reyes (10 + 5 rb + 3 to), Ayon (8 + 7 rb + 4 as), Carrol (9), Deck (8), Prepelic (4 pf), Thompkins (0)…
CSKA: De Colo (15 + 3 rb + 5 as + 3 to), Peters (11 + 2 as + 4 pf), Clyburn (18 + 6 rb + 2 st), Hackett (5 + 4 rb + 2 as + 5 pf), Hunter (8 + 6 rb + 3 as) – start; Bolomboy (0), Antonov (0), Higgins (24 + 4 as), Lopatin (DNP), Kulagin (5), Kurbanov (2), Hines (5 + 4 pf)…
Dimitris Itoudis, CSKA head coach:
I would like to say, obviously, congratulations to my team. Tonight we had two teams wanting to bounce back, but, obviously, I have to talk about my team. We wanted to bounce back after a bad performance defensively, especially in the second half, from the middle of the third quarter and the whole fourth quarter against Buducnost. We have worked a lot, we have analyzed ourselves, we have been criticized. And it couldn’t happen better for us, to have such a great opponent in front of us to play against and see where we are at. I think we played a very smart game although we had our bad moments. One of them was in the second quarter, when we were scoreless for seven minutes. But I think that in the third quarter, when we realized how we had to play the game, especially on the level of hustle, we controlled the second half. I repeat again, against a great opponent, the defending champions, playing at home. They have full respect from our side, but big congratulations to my players because after that second quarter and that seven-minute blackout on offense, we didn’t get the help we needed from the players coming off the bench. That drastically changed in the third quarter. We had help from each and every one of them. I want to congratulate them because we did the small things, we accumulated a lot of small things down the stretch and won the game. We want to keep our composure; we have a lot of games ahead of us. It is a good win, but this is just the beginning in this EuroLeague marathon.
