Slowly but surely

After spinning a bit in a viscous UNICS defense our team dictated the game to the visitors and did not allow them to come very close in the end, winning another game in the Russian championship.

CSKA vs. UNICS: 75-68

Ettore Messina, CSKA head coach:

“As you have seen we played without two point guards and it changed our game. But the team worked hard on defense throughout all the game. We had some problems with Popovic in the first half and with Loncar until the end. I am satisfied with our young players Keyru and Vorontsevich, especially with Keyru who played good both on defense and on offense. In the end we were tired and we allowed our opponents to get closer than 10 points but we still got an important win.”

Aco Petrovic, UNICS head coach:

“We had a chance to win because CSKA missed such an important player as Holden. And we were preparing to play aggressive defense on Zisis and other players who will play as a point guards. But CSKA has a deep bench and good Russian players. For example, Vorontsevich scored two three-pointers when we were up, and then he got very important offensive rebound. Keyru played good defense and scored an important three. Khryapa rebounded and he was stealing the balls all the time. In the second quarter we were not so aggressive and CSKAdictated the game. The difference in the levels of basketball was obvious. In fact we lost all the mismatches. From the other side we had big problems with injuries. We are still waiting for Lyday to come back, and now Popovic, Samoylenko, Zamansky and Sokolov are playing with different injuries. Now we play six games on a road so we don’t have time for the players to rehabilitate.”