CSKA vs. Khimki Moscow Region: 89-58
Evgeny Pashutin, CSKA head coach:
“The team played phenomenally, both on defense and offense. Not just one or two players, but the whole team. But I’d like to mention our defense specifically: our plan not to allow the opponent to score 60 points worked out again, as it worked in the series vs Samara and Dynamo. And Khimki had only 47 points with 2 minutes left! Some downfall in the second quarter can be explained by our desire to use wider rotation and to let our starters rest in these moments. I do not want to blame reserves – they just did not make some easy shots, the opponents scored in fast breaks again, and the difference was cut to 11 points. But in the end, as we expected, our fresh starters decided the outcome by raising the difference to 20 points. Now we think about the second game only, we will try to improve our offense against zone.”
