CSKA vs. Maccabi TA: 77-72
Evgeny Pashutin, CSKA Head Coach:
“The game of those level – is the jewel for the Euroleague. The fans saw the battle of CSKA who played last four final games and Maccabi which opposed to our team in two of those games. We thought that we won too early and allowed our opponent to get back into the game. When you score one easy basket after another you begin to think that your opponent gave up already. And the team stopped playing defense. Maccabi has a number of great scorers who are coming from the bench and they scored three three-pointers to get back on track. If we were able to defend and to keep 20-point difference at the break, I think the opponent could not compete. In the third and fourth quarters our visitors played zone, and in the end after losing Khryapa we took a risk of playing Siskauskas as four. And we succeed: first the did not help from power forward position, second, Ramunas scored four key free throws in the end.”
Pini Gershon, Maccabi Head Coach:
“We expected a tough game here as usually. We started badly allowing CSKA to control offensive rebounds and turned the ball over too much. But in the second quarter we started to play better defense, took over control of the game and were able to get close after trailing 21 point. It was very important to take right decisions in the end – both for players and referees – but we took two wrong decisions and got two wrong calls. After the first quarter we tried not to let Kaun catch the ball inside and if he finally gets the ball – not to let him score easily. And you can see that CSKA had 6 offensive rebounds in the first period and the only rebound after that.”
