CSKA - Benetton: 80-75

CSKA won the Moncalieri tournament after beating Benetton 80-75 in the extra time. It was the 3rd match of these two teams in two past weeks and before the game the series tied 1-1.

CSKA - Benetton: 80-75 OT (18-23, 19-7, 18-18, 10-17, 15-10)

CSKA: Shabalkin (18 + 8 reb), Andersen (15 + 8 reb), Langdon (12 + 3 reb + 2 st), Kurbanov (12 + 6 reb), Vyaltsev (10 + 2 st), Panov (9 + 3 reb), Lamma (4 + 2 reb), Zavoruev (2 reb).

Unforced errors were the problem CSKA faced in the start of the game. Although the club was leading by 2 points Ettore Messina had to call the time out with 5.17 to go in the quarter. After that CSKA tried to keep the ball for some time and tried to score only after 10 or more seconds of rotation on the court. Benetton did the opposite thing – the team did the best to score as fast as possible. The tactics of David Blatt was effective as CSKA young players did not have enough time to focus on defense. The result of the first quarter is 18-23.

But it took the Army club only 2 and a half minutes to tie the score. It was Langdon’s 3-pointer that helped CSKA in this way 24-23. CSKA defense started to work but this time for three minutes none of the teams could score a single point – 26-23. The Army club was the first to de-freeze the score but was not able to build the double digits gap – 37-30 at the end of the half.

At the start of the 3rd quarter CSKA got the gap of the 11 points thanks to 3 points of Egor Vyaltsev but once again came the series of the errors and once again Ettore Messina called the time out – 48-44. The end of the period CSKA spent well defensively and the score expressed it like 55-48.

The last minute of the game the teams started with the 65-63 score. But two free throws of Luka Sottana helped Benetton to tie. Both of the teams had a chance to win in the regular time. But at first Langdon was just a bit late with the shot from under the basket, as for Benetton the team made a turnover on the last seconds of the playing time.

CSKA started the extra period great – 72-65 with 3 minutes to go. David Blatt called time outs, talked to the players but all of the actions took effect only with a minute and a half to go – 74-72. The last minute included two three pointers from each side – one from Nikita Shabalkin and the other from Andrea Bargnani. After that Shabalkin made one of two free throws, CSKA took the rebound and Nikita Kurbanov made the last ball in the game – 80-75.