Payback

In the final round of Euroleague regular season CSKA lost to Partizan in the difficult ending, involuntarily paying back to Serbian champions for their lack of luck in the final seconds of the game in Belgrade...

CSKA vs. Partizan: 63-66

Ettore Messina, CSKA head coach:

“When you have an experienced team and it plays with no aggressiveness, no desire, without those fire in the eyes, this is the coach’s responsibility. And I have to take it, to think more about this game. I have not much to tell you about it now. I have too many emotions, it’s like you want to come to the room, to break the table and then to think what happened. Talking about the regular season, I am happy with the result. But we had too much up-n-downs in our game and the worst is that we are starting the Top 16 having no core of the team. We just don’t know who are those 5 guys who can go to the court in the deciding minutes and win the game for us.”

Dusko Vujosevic, Partizan head coach:

“I am happy that we were able to win against the great team like CSKA. We are friendly clubs, we live in friendly countries – there are no much clubs like ours in the world.

This game was very important for us. I know that Real Madrid fought hard to win against Efes Pilsen but we could not count on it, we should win this game. We just wanted this win badly, we had more motivation. The coaches can say everything but if you don’t feel it in your stomach you cannot win.

I am a big fan of CSKA Moscow, I appreciate the results of the team and coach Messina is my friend, I like him and I respect his work. CSKA has quality roster. Maybe the team needs someone under the basket, but I am sure even with this players they will aim for the biggest goals. As for us we have already reached what we wanted. We are in the Top 16 and we are happy.”