CSKA qualified to Top16

Another hard game brought CSKA a step closer to the final goal of the season. The Army club qualified to Top16 just in the second game of the 2nd round of the regular season and its winning serie reached the 22 games mark.

CSKA vs Panathinaikos: 75-72

The best two players of CSKA were Dimos Dikoudis (20 points) and Theodoras Papaloukas. Probably their effort in this game could be explained as Pao came from their native country Greece. Another player who archieved 18 points was Marcus Brown.

In the beginning CSKA seemed to have no serious problems with the rival. Although it took the team several more personal fouls than usual, it build the lead – 25-15 in the beginning of the 2nd quarter.The difficulties for CSKA came several minutes later. Pao looked increadibly well in the defence and made an impressive 3-19 run. The hosts managed to come back only with 3.54 to go in the whole game.


Head coach of CSKA Dusan Ivkovic:

- It was one very good and tough game which consists of several very different parts. We played very good in defense in the first quarter and attacked with high percentage. But after it my players lost concentration. Second and third quarters were very bad for us. Our defense one-to-one was very bad. The key moment of the game was when the score was minus 8. We decided to play in three guards and put on the court Papaloukas, Holden and Brown. I think that we deserved this victory. I want to congratulate Panathinaikos who shown very good basketball today. We have to continue our work and prepare to next games.

Head coach of Panathinaikos Zeljko Obradovic:

- Today we played against the strongest team in Europe now. I am very disappoint with our lose. We played very good the most part of the game, but some moment we played really stupid. From another side I want to notice very low level of officiating. Too many fouls were not call by referees. I want to congratulate CSKA. They had very good quality and some think what let them desire to win. They want to win every time, not depends how many points they lose on the moment.