Real Madrid vs. CSKA: 90-95 (+5)
Real Madrid: Randolph (12 + 5 rb), Fernandez (10 + 4 as + 5 pf), Campazzo (10 + 6 as + 5 pf), Tavares (6 + 9 rb + 3 bs + 5 pf), Taylor (3) – start; Causeur (18), Reyes (DNP), Ayon (2), Carrol (5), Llull (13 + 2 as), Deck (2), Thompkins (9 + 6 rb)…
CSKA: De Colo (23 + 4 rb + 2 as + 3 to), Clyburn (18 + 5 rb), Hackett (3 + 3 rb + 2 as + 4 pf), Kurbanov (0), Hunter (8 + 5 rb) – start; Bolomboy (0), Peters (3 + 5 rb), Ukhov (DNP), Rodriguez (23 + 4 as + 4 pf), Vorontsevich (DNP), Higgins (11 + 3 rb), Hines (6 + 4 rb)…
Dimitris Itoudis, CSKA head coach:
I would like to express my gratitude and my congratulations to my players. We all witnessed an amazing and outstanding comeback. I would like to congratulate Real Madrid for a great season. The way they played the game, they were ahead most of the game, they were in control of the game, and especially that third quarter gave them that boost that was necessary to get a big margin for such a close game. But we kept believing and we showed today how deep we are as a team. We said at the beginning of that fourth quarter that if we want to qualify for the championship game, we need to limit their creativity, the ways that they found during the game to score easy baskets. And imagine that it happened in an absurd situation because they were playing big ball and we were switching with small ball. Even though we were smaller size wise, we were big in heart. We kept fighting, rebounding and outplaying them in the fourth quarter. At the same time though, we kept our necessary composure in the clutch moments and knocked down some amazing shots. At minus 14, Chacho [Rodriguez] took over the team and gave that belief to everybody that we can come back. Then Nando took it over and Cory. Othello came from deep off the bench with a long time of not playing and he gave us a great performance. It was an amazing comeback, congratulations to my team. We qualified for the championship game where we will face another great opponent.
