Today evening Khimki Moscow Region had a 1,5-hour practice in USH CSKA. Before the game against our team Sergey Elevich has 12 players. There are guards Arseny Kuchinsky, Alexey Savkov, Vasily Karasev, the captain of the team Alexey Vadeev, Cladimir Demin, forwards Alexander Petrenko, Igor Zamansky, Sergey Krasnikov, Denis Karpov and centers Mikhail Soloviev, Denis Ershov and Alexey Zorin.
After the practice Sergey Elevich and the playmaker of the Russian national team Vasily Karasev answered the questions for our site.
Khimki head coach Sergey Elevich:
Is tomorrow game principal for you?
(smiling) You know, when you play against the leader, you always want to show the best you can. Now CSKA is a leader in Russian Superleague and in Euroleague also. Of course, result is very important, but I wan spectators to stay pleased with tomorrow game. I want them to see interesting game, I would like two teams to show good basketball for them. CSKA makes a lot for fans and they must to receive good product.
My team and CSKA have different opportunities. But when the building of our own arena will be finish we would play better I think. Now we can’t show our best because of absence or our own hall.
What result in this season would be good for you?
- I don’t like to think about result but I can say that I don’t satisfy of our game. I wasn’t with the team in the preseason because of my work in the national team. Now we have problems and must work on this. We must correct our positions.
Is it necessary to have legionaries in the squad to have good results?
- I never said that it is bad to have legionnaires. I just think that we must think about the limit of them. It is impossible to have good result without good foreign players. We have good team but we can’t show our vest in Europe because we haven’t good legionnaires. If you want to win something in Europe you must have good squad. Now CSKA is going to win Euroleague ULEB. I like this team, I’m a fan of CSKA but we have different roads. In my team I prefer to give more attention to a reserve.
Who of CSKA players do you like most of all?
- I would like to speak about Russian players. I like Khriapa and Monia very much. In some games Sergey Paniv is very good. He plays good in defense like he played earlier. Anton Youdin is not good. In some games he saved his team thank to his 3-points. I give much attention to the players of the national team and I like their game. But I would like them to play more time, may be 20-25 minutes. It would be very good for Russian basketball.
The guard of Khimki Vasily Karasev:
Some newspapers write that CSKA, UNICS, Ural-Great and Khimki plays their own championship. What do you think about it?
- I’m not sure about Khimki but CSKA has its own place in Russian Superleague and in Euroleague. It is very strong team. Tomorrow it would be very important for us to show good game.
How do you think is it necessary to have legionnaires in the squad to win something?
- It is difficult to say what you need to win. For good result in Russian championship you need to have money. If you can take all best Russian players to the one team, it can win anything.
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