At the very beginning of the press conference, Slask head coach Jacek Winnicki congratulated CSKA on their victory: "I don’t believe that the final score reflects how close the game actually was," he said. "My team fought and did their best, but we missed some easy shots, especially at the beginning. We had a chance at the end of the third period, but the beginning of the fourth quarter was the decisive phase. They got some easy baskets in transition, and we weren’t able to recover from that."
- What goals does Slask have in the Euroleague?
To make it to the second round. It’s still realistic for us. We have four home games.
Slask center Alvin Jones’s comments didn’t differ much from those of his coach: "We started out the game well, and it was obvious that both teams were playing excellent defense. The main difference was that they made theplays that we didn’t. They were able to convert important baskets. We started out well in the third quarter also and gave ourselves a chance. But they came out in the fourth quarter and started knocking down shots.
CSKA head coach Dusan Ivkovic spoke in the beginning about the difficulties his team faced before the game. There were three main ones: "First, it was our first game in three weeks, and we had eight players who were gone to play for their national teams," he said. "We didn’t have the Russian
national team players - Panov, Bashminov, Khryapa, Monya and Zakhar Pashutin - Greek players Papaloukas and Chatzivrettas, and the injured Songaila. Secondly, we were playing without two of our frontline players, Songaila and Gatling. Third, was had a very short time together to prepare for this game. But our players played very professionally and played good defense throughout the entire game. Slask is a very good shooting team, and it was a big accomplishment for us to hold them to only 43 points."
“Our coach told us before the game that this was an excellent shooting team," said CSKA forward Sergey Monya. "We worked hard in practice to prepare for their shooters, and it’s obvious that our hard work paid off."
- Over the course of the game you and Victor Alexander were fighting over rebounds. Was there a lack of understanding?
This was our first game with Victor Alexander. I knew he was a great player coming in, but we’ve only had a few days to play together and get to know one another. It takes a bit of time to get used to playing with new teammates.
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