First win on the road in the Euroleague

CSKA is the third Russian team to play this week against French side. Both Dynamo Moscow and Dynamo St.Petersburg came up winners from the games against Le Mans and Cholet correspondently. Now it was CSKA turn.

Pau-Ortez – CSKA: 55-69

The game started with a small delay. The five players that entered the court from CSKA side were J.R.Holden, Trajan Langdon, David Vanterpool, Sergey Panov and David Andersen. But the referees asked to replace Holden with Smodis as it was written in the starting line-ups application form. Without the playmaker CSKA lost first two minutes by 4 points. It took Holden a while to enter the game and to organize the partners. The Army club showed the mix of some good actions in defense and the mistakes, as for offense CSKA played unusually slow. So the status quo was reset only with 3.08 to go in the quarter – 11-11. But after that all CSKA attempts to score were useless until the break.

The second quarter was a kind of hide-and-seek game. Pau was making a few points lead- with the maximum of 8 points with 6.23 to go in the quarter, then it was CSKA turn to start work hard in the defense and try to catch Pau before it would start truly control the game. The Army club managed to get minimum advantage only by the half time break – 34-33.

CSKA started the game after the half time break with simply a different mood. The team started to control the game though the head coach of Pau-Ortez Didier Gadou did his best to delay the moment. CSKA showed the great defensive effort and in the middle of the quarter it became clear that the team received mental advantage. But CSKA the advantage appeared on the table only with a minute to go in the quarter. The Army club nearly set the double digit gap – 59-50 but one long distance shot of the rival almost spoiled everything.

In the last period CSKA finally made it. With 7.06 to go Langdon made a three points shot and made a score 56-46. As the mark was passed, CSKA never looked back. The team managed to win the first road game in the Euroleague.