CSKA young team and UNIKS-2 are the teams with the same status in the clubs. Both ranked second. But the age category of the teams is different. UNIKS-2 plays in Superleague B, so the team has more experienced players on the roster and plays more athletic basketball.
CSKA - UNIKS-2: 74-87
On the other side CSKA also added some height to the roster. Anatoly Kashirov from the main team and Dmitry Peresypkin from Trinta Stars joined the team for the 1/16 Finals game. It took CSKA almost all the game to adopt the newcomers as the team that got used to play as fast as possible not to let the rivals to use height advantage can not immediately start to play in opposite way. Another problem was the lack of Alexey Shved. The playmaker got a flue and did not take part in the game so Andrey Maltsev had to use 16 years old Polokhin at the position.
The changes affected the team play of CSKA not in the best way. The shooting percentage from the field was far below average – 30. It is clear that any team can not succeed shooting like this. And CSKA was not an exception. Up to the middle of the 3rd quarter the Army club struggled and did not let the rival to build the gap, but then gave up. The final score with the 13 points difference is not the worst result at all. It leaves a small hope for the team in the second game in Kazan.
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