Not our time

Armani Jeans deserved to win. From the other side we played bad. They prolonged their offense for all 24 seconds but we did not prolong our defense for this 24 seconds. The opponents fouled a lot but we did not make them foul to shoot the free throw as we drawn only 9 fouls to shot. That tells about lack of energy both on defense and offense. Surely we are affected by our American Tour, we have some injured players and some players who just returned to the roster. But I don’t want to use all this as an excuse. We played awful in the beginning of the game and in the end of second quarter when we allowed Armani Jeans to score 7 points in 30 seconds. It was just wasted time. Partly that is due to the opponent who played quality game. But I still think that we lost this game ourselves. We did not forget how to play basketball. But to play fast as we did in the preseason you have to defend well. But they attacked patiently, chose the positions for the shots perfectly and they were very aggressive on defense against our set offense, trying to protect the players from catching the ball.

We played very good game, with full concentration and no fear. We studied CSKA game well and showed good defense. CSKA scored only 73 points. From the other side we have 6 players who scored 10 points or more, and that means that we moved the ball well. Our four-men shot well from the perimeter. Mancinelli got too much space from the very beginning and Pecherov was effective on pick-and-pop. To win in Moscow is very important because rare teams are able to win here. I can say that our team is ready for the start of Euroleague.