CSKA vs. Unicaja Malaga: 86-78
Evgeny Pashutin, CSKA head coach:
“We got very important win against very strong team. Unicaja demonstrates fast basketball, uses zone defense and a lot of double teams. The club was leading its group on regular season stage during 2-3 months winning games with big margin. After that they replaced Dean by Dixon and became even stronger. Our task was to stop their fast breaks and think we did that almost all the game – with exception of the second quarter. Our starter had another great game plus Holden and Vorontsevich did a lot of work. After the successful game vs UNICS in VTB League final Andrey plays with more confidence and he helped us both on offense and defense, keeping Archibald in check. We did not think about point difference because it keeps your thoughts out of the main goal – to win the game. But in the end it was important: coach Aito even used two time outs trying to score in the end and we answered by putting Planinic instead of Holden to have bigger lineup. We planned to switch on the screens not to allow the opponent to score from outside.”
Aito Reneses, Unicaja head coach:
“I am happy with the way we played in the second half, but I do not like how we played in the beginning at all. We weren’t showing our speed and intensity and improved only after the break. I think we had all the chances to win, but CSKA players scored with amazing percentage from the three-point line. Sometimes it looked like Langdon, Holden and Siskauskas are able to make every shot they take.”
