To be continued

CSKA won the first game of the quarterfinal serie against Ulker – 88-74. The club started to lead in the second quarter and control the game despite the Turkish club attempts to come back in the 3rd quarter. The last minutes of the game were marked with several spectacular 3-pointers by J.R. Holden and Marcus Brown.

CSKA vs Ulker: 88-74

Brown became CSKA best scorer – 16. He was followed by Dikoudis (13), Holden (12) and Andersen (11).

Ulker appeared on the CSKA Sports Hall court more concentrated than in the first 2 games of the season. But the other side of this concentration was a fighting mood. The referees let the teams to play the game that could be descrubed as ‘close-to-dirty’. CSKA players were lucky not to receive serious injuries. After the half time the scenery changed as the guests received enough personal fouls to calm down. The most attractive part of the game for the audience was the last minute. As usual CSKa spends this time a bit relaxed but not in this game.

The head coach of CSKA Dusan Ivkovic:

- I want to congratulate my players who won the important first game of the difficult play-off series. All 4 quarters were quite different. We started with 6 turnovers. The second quarter was our best. We played on the high rhythm, like it needed against the team like Ulker. After our advantage was 15 points, our third quarter was not good. Our rhythm was down, we could not score points in transition. In the last quarter we returned to the game and scored many points in transition and several 3-pointers. Generally I did not like our second half. Now we have not enough time to rest before the second game. Tomorrow morning we have a flight to Istanbul. We have some problems. Papaloukas broken his nose again, it is painful and sensitive. We need to concentrate, to prepare good and win the second game.

The head coach of Ulker Ergin Ataman:

- We made big mistake in the first half when we let CSKA to score to many point in the paint. It broke our game. In the second half we could recover. Stombergas improved his game. We could win the third quarter and cut the advantage of opponent to 6 points. But then we made second mistake. We let Holden to score many points in 1-to-1 game and many 3-pointers. Also our big men entered the second half with too many fouls on our big men. I trust that referring in Istanbul will be more correct and we win.