To cope with the power

The second leg of the Euroleague regular season starts for CSKA with a meeting with Maroussi. Outsider of group C has made many serious clubs nervous this season, and our team pulled out a victory in Athens at the last second.

During a meeting in the first round, won by a fantastic three by Victor Khryapa, CSKA received a fair share of criticism. That mediocre performance had some justification: Alexander Kaun and Andrey Vorontsevich missed the game due to injury and disease, Khryapa, recovered from his knee injury, played his first full game, Ramunas Siskauskas was far from optimal shape, and team actions looked very raw. CSKA has no way to retreat now. The loss of Dmitry Sokolov (center practices individually after injuring ankle ligaments) can be compensated by active play of Kaun, and red-and-blue team aims at the win.

Coaches soften the practices’ schedule after two consecutive difficult games in the Euroleague and Superleague. CSKA practiced in the weightlifting gym and shot the ball on Monday, and on Tuesday held a single evening training session.

It should be noted that Maroussi also passed through hard times. They played three difficult games in eight days - against Panathinaikos, Maccabi and Ilisiadis, and the last meeting against not so strong team from Greek league turned out to be not so easy. Athenians arrived to Moscow on Tuesday and they scheduled an evening workout at USH CSKA. Their roster have a lot of changes in comparison with the beginning of the season. Arigbabu, Koumpouras, Diamantopulos and Kendall are injured. Nadjfeji who is familiar to the fans in Russia after playing for Ural Great and UNICS made its debut for Maroussi last week.

“The meeting with Maroussi in Athens was our first game in the Euroleague season, moreover, it was a road game and it was very tough, - CSKA head coach Evgeny Pashutin said. Maroussi is a very dangerous opponent, ready to fight against any favorite. You can just watch their game in Tel Aviv, where the Greek team had its chances until the end after getting advantage on the glass. Keys and Lucas are very aggressive guards, and the team has a number of powerful big men like Kaimakoglu, Homan, Mavroeidis. It is very difficult to fight against them under the basket, and they try to slow down the pace of the game, to make the opponent play half-court offense. Thus it will be extremely important to be focused, to pay better attention to defense and rebounds and to play disciplined offense.”