CSKA — Baskonia, 18 April 2017

CSKA vs. Baskonia Vitoria Gasteiz: 98-90 (+8)

CSKA: De Colo (17 + 3 rb + 4 to), Teodosic (22 + 5 as), Augustine (9 + 5 rb + 4 st), Fridzon (6), Jackson (8 + 5 as + 4 pf), Antonov (5), Vorontsevich (5 + 5 rb), Higgins (12), Khryapa (2), Kurbanov (6 + 5 rb + 3 to), Hines (6)…

Baskonia: Larkin (17 + 5 to), Voigtmann (12 + 8 rb), Hanga (12 + 4 as + 3 to + 4 pf), Beaubois (13 + 3 to), Diop (5 + 3 rb + 4 pf), Tillie (2 + 3 rb + 4 pf), Shengelia (12 + 4 rb + 3 to), Budinger (8 + 3 rb), Luz (9 + 4 as)…

Congratulations to the team, it’s 1-0 and this is how we wanted to finish this night. Still we approach the series game by game. We took over immediately, we were up 21-10. Baskonia got back into game thanks to Luz. In the third quarter we scored well but in the fourth Larkin took over, he scored 14 in the fourth. Still we saved the best for the last moments, we were cold-blooded in the clutch, we executed good plays. It’s a pity that we had just 7 thousands fans in attendance. I would like to ask journalists to direct this message to our fans: what do they want from the team? We are European champions, we play good basketball, we fight, we go into playoffs with home-court advantage, we win VTB League regular season. And it seems like our fans stay at home on the sofas and criticize instead of coming here and support the team. I don’t understand what is going on. Still I would like to congratulate and thank those 7 thousands who come, they were enthusiastic tonight.