Opposition

The nine-time Russian champions versus the defending champions. The winningest Russian coach Sergei Belov versus one of Europe-s best coaches, Dusan Ivkovic. Five-thousand-seat USH CSKA versus the seven-thousand-seat Molot Sports Arena. Russian basketballs top basketball manager Sergei
Kushchenko versus his successor in Perm Pavel Lyakh. The season-s most intriguing matchup: CSKA versus Perm-s Ural-Great in the final seven-game series of the Russian Championship.

The teams have met three times this season. In the Superleague regular season, both teams defend their
respective home courts, and at a neutral site (the Russian Cup Final Four in Yekaterinenburg), the Army team emerged victorious.

We decided to begin the traditional point guard matchup even before the start of the series, asking J.R. Holden (CSKA) and Eddie Shannon (Ural-Great) to talk about their respective counterpart:

John Robert Holden (height v 183 cm, weight v 82 kg., born v 10.08.1976 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA):

- As a rule, I don-t think about individual matchups with one of the other players. Let Shannon score as much as he wants v even 50 points v but let my team win. I don-t have anything against Eddie. He-s a great guy and a great player, but in most games I don-t have anything to do with players like that. So it-s the same to me whether I play against Shannon or Melvin Booker, the most important thing is the final score. I hope I can play my best in any matchup. But again, there-s nothing personal. All great players, including Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, were outplayed at one point in their careers. It doesn-t mean that in the next meeting the went out to destroy their opponent. Basketball is above all a team game.

Eddie Shannon, PBC Ural Great point guard (height v 180 cm, weight 77kg, born v 29.01.1977 in Rivera Beach, Florida, USA):

- Holden is a really good player. He shoots really well, hands off assists and defends. I think that thanks to Holden the Moscow club has so many victories. It-s not easy to play against him v you can-t leave him alone for
a second. And on the other side of the coin, he doesn-t let up on defense. I played against him for the first time this season, but I-ve been following his career in Europe for a long time.


Season Records:

Points:
- Shannon - 34
- Holden - 29
Rebounds:
- Shannon- 8 (twice)
- Holden - 7
Assists:
- Shannon- 11
- Holden- 10 (three times)
Steals:
- Shannon - 7
- Holden - 5