Post-game Press Conference (Game 1)

Dusan Ivkovic, PBC CSKA Head Coach:

“The preparation for this game was very difficult. Especially from a psychological approach. In the first game of the final series of the Russian Championship, we came out after two losses in Barcelona. Benetton had similar problems, and after a loss in the Euroleague final, they lost to an average team, Reggio Calabria. But our team dealt with that. We controlled practically the entire game, with the exception of two moments. The first was when Ural Great scored seven unanswered points coming out of a timeout, and the second was when we were outplayed by their mall lineup of Kubrakov, Vaikulis, Lavrinovic, Khryapa and Pegushin. You can see that my team just let its guard down during this stretch. All 12 CSKA players played in this game. Our big guys played especially well. CSKA’s most experienced player - Victor Alexander - early on got us into our rhythm. Bashminov and Panov also played well. I would also like to praise our point guards - Holden, Papalukas and Evgeny Pashutin - thanks to whom we were able to press successfully for three quarters. But tomorrow will be a completely different game, not at all resembling today’s. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough time to prepare for the second game. But those are the rules of the competition.”


Valemaras Chomicius, PBC Ural Great Coach:

“It’s always hard to explain a loss. But first off I’d like to give CSKA their due. They came out and played 100 percent, playing at their level for 40 minutes. We weren’t able to stay focused on defense. As a result, we made more mistakes. The times when we played well as a team, we were able to score or force our opponents to foul us. But most of the times our players tried to do it all by
themselves, taking long shots or going one-on-one. We didn’t have the experience or the stamina. It may seam like we closed out the season with a win over UNICS. But it’s not like that. We will figure out our mistakes. I hope we’ll play differently tomorrow.”