Russian NT practices in CSKA

Russian National Team is practicing in USH CSKA as a part of preparation process for Eurobasket 2009.

The players will practice two times a day until August 22 and will depart to Athens to play in Acropolis Tournament. The team will return to CSKA arena on August 28, where it will practice until August 30, and then it will play the friendly game in Lithuania against the hosts.

“We use the scheme which is well-known for us, - Russian NT coach, CSKA head coach Evgeny Pashutin said. We had almost the same schedule before the Eurobasket in Spain. We will play several more exhibition games – against Lithuania, Greece and Serbia, which will be a great examination. The coaching staff follows all the strengths and weaknesses of the players, makes some tactical adjustments, tries to improve team chemistry. Our main task is to play off the defense, and our friendly games in Bulgaria (88-89, 89-62) showed that we are right. In the second game we defended better but scored the same amount of points and won the game. David Blatt put the attention on that once again during the meeting after Bulgarian trip, mentioning that we will have a chance on the Eurobasket if we play good defense.”

Let us remind that all the practices of Russian NT are open for Russian coaches due to the initiative of David Blatt. The basketball practices start at 17.30 Moscow time. The practice on August 21 starts at 14.30.