CSKA — Crvena Zvezda, 14 April 2016

In amazingly heated game our team took the second win in the series, laying upon great defense and excellent job done by the second unit.

CSKA vs. Crvena Zvezda (Belgrad): 77-76 (+1)

CSKA: De Colo (13 + 4 rb + 3 st + 3 to), Teodosic (9 + 3 rb + 5 to), Fridzon (2), Nichols (5), Jackson (5 + 4 rb + 3 to + 4 pf), Lazarev (2), Vorontsevich (6 + 4 rb), Higgins (13 + 3 rb), Kurbanov (3 + 3 rb + 2 bs + 4 pf), Hines (19 + 4 rb)…

Crvena Zvezda: Kinsey (14 + 5 rb + 3 st + 4 to + 4 pf), Dangubic (1 + 5 as), Mitrovic (2), Lazic (7 + 5 pf), Simonovic (14 + 3 rb), Jovic (15 + 3 rb + 7 as + 6 to), Miller (11 + 5 rb + 2 bs), Zirbes (9 + 5 rb), Stimac (3 + 5 rb)…

Aaron Jackson, CSKA guard:

It was a good game from both teams. In the first half we did not play our best basketball. Zvezda did a real good job of pressuring us and causing turnovers. Coming out of the locker room, we did a real good job of making adjustments, picking up on defense and being aggressive. It was a great team performance. You got to expect, when you have Nando and Milos who are easily the top backcourt in Europe, that Zvezda will be focusing on them, and they did a good job of doing that. We need to support them, and we made some good decisions on the bench. We know those two are our guys, we need them for the next game. We have to go to Serbia and play good basketball.

Dimitris Itoudis, CSKA head coach:

I am proud of my team. When you hear what Aaron Jackson says, you see what we have in the locker room. We have a team. This is playoffs. People that are playing certain amount minutes in back-to-back games; they will not always have their best performance, but you need more people to step up and be in the equation. I said that after Game 1, and today we have that, and I am proud of that. This is a great lesson. No one said [the] series will be a walk in the park. I have a huge respect to the game, and to the opponent’s coaches, opponent’s players, and the opposing team. We have a 2-0 series lead, that is also for congratulations. We are one win away from the Final Four. We know it is not going to be easy. We go to our routine, analyzing, talking and preparing for the third game. The fans really helped us in those crucial moments, like they played defense with us at the same time. We put them in the equation, also. In the game, we had defensive problems in the second quarter. We said at halftime we had to change our defensive mode. And we changed it. In the entire second half we gave up 28 points. We forced turnovers, and created with our defensive performance. We had like an extra defender on our defense. Offensively we have the talent to do things, and it is something we will work on before going to Belgrade.