CSKA — Maccabi, 21 February 2014

Our team demolished underhanded Maccabi in the clash of the leaders of the Euroleague Group F and took sole first place. David Blatt takes home only the Order of Friendship awarded by Sergey Ivanov.

CSKA vs. Maccabi (Tel Aviv, Israel): 100-65 (+35)

CSKA: Teodosic (22 + 3 rb + 8 as + 5 to), Micov (3 rb), Fridzon (7 + 4 as), Jackson (11), Krstic (14 + 3 rb), Weems (16 + 5 rb + 3 to), Kaun (12), Khryapa (10 + 10 rb + 8 as + 4 st), Hines (8 + 5 rb + 2 bs)…

Maccabi: Rice (9), Hickman (8), Ingles (13 + 6 rb + 6 as + 4 pf), Pnini (11), Ohayon (4), Blu (3), Landesberg (5 + 4 to), Schortsanitis (12 + 5 to + 4 pf)…

Ettore Messina, CSKA head coach:

We should not forget that Maccabi missed several players, especially Smith and Tyes. Still it is a great win for us. Big part of credit goes to my assistants Dan [Shamir] and Dima [Shakulin] as well as Benas [Matkevicius]. Dan and Dima worked under coach Blatt and they know well his system which is actually a difficult system to play against. So these preparations were very important. Definitely I’d like to say that our players acted wonderfully. Except for obvious talent they showed desire, effort, aggressiveness, toughness. I wish all of us to stay humble, to remember that the road to the Final Four is long and difficult. Hopefully we gained confidence and desire to follow the same path.

David Blatt, Maccabi Electra head coach:

Congratulations to coach Messina and his players. CSKA played great game. Without question they were far better than us tonight. Regardless of certain circumstances – and we missed 4 players of our regular rotation – CSKA was better, and I don’t use our injuries as an excuse. Still I can mention that with full roster we possessed the same record so I think that actually we are not that bad as we were tonight.