CSKA – TAU: 82-76

CSKA won a very important home game. TAU scored 26 points in the first quarter and got 10 points lead. Only by the half time the Army club managed to even the score. The 8-0 run in the third period helped CSKA to build a lead and to win a game in general.

CSKA - TAU Ceramica: 82-76

• Matjaz Smodis scored 21 points. It’s a repeat of his high this season in all the official games

• Matjaz Smodis made 5 steals. It’s his high this season in all the official games

• David Vanterpool scored 18 points. It’s his high this season in all the official games

• Tomas Van Den Spiegel nearly made double-double (9 points + 9 rebounds) in his 4th game for CSKA


Ettore Messina, CSKA head coach:

- It was a very important game for us. We had a very tough first quarter, we stepped on the court nervous and missed their fast breaks but then several of our players started to control game mentally and that helped us to improve our defense and to get some advantage in the rebounds. It was the key for the game. It is very good that we won a home game we played under pressure. We used to have difficulties in such kind of games before. I mean Montepaschi and Panathinaikos games we lost at the group stage. We were not lucky and missed a throw in the last possession.

What do you think on the game of Smodis?

- He played a lot of minutes and seemed to be a bit tired in the end of each period. But anyway he had a good game, he helped us a lot to hold back Scola. Matjaz was the player who made the TAU forward foul in a low post.


Velimir Perasovic, TAU head coach:

- It was a very hard game especially the second half. We started a game in a good way but then we could not find right solutions in the defense against Vanterpool and Smodis. And we were bothered with the fouls. CSKA is without any doubts a very strong team with a good defense but they had 27 free throws attempts and we had only 10.