Touching the Great

CSKA – UNICS Kazan: 91-63 (+28)

CSKA: Ware (7 + 4 as), Ruzhentsev (7 + 5 rb + 3 as + 4 pf), Ukhov (13), Astapkovich (5 + 4 rb), Jean-Charles (4 + 9 rb + 2 as) – start; Cleveland (17 + 3 rb + 2 st), Trimble (26 + 5 as), Karpenko (0), Chadov (3), Antonov (3), Kurbanov (6 rb), Mitrovic (6 + 6 rb)…

UNICS: Belenitskiy (9 + 4 rb), Bingham (15 + 7 rb + 2 st + 2 bs), Kulagin (7), Lee (3 + 3 as + 3 to), Lopatin (2 + 6 rb + 4 pf) – start; Reynolds (5 + 5 rb), Munford (DNP), Zakharov (3), Abdulbasirov (5), Stulenkov (DNP), Stewart (3), Shved (11 + 3 rb + 7 as + 2 st + 4 pf)…

Andreas Pistiolis, CSKA head coach:

First of all, let me express my gratitude to the fans who came out today and created a fantastic atmosphere. I also want to congratulate Melo Trimble on his MVP award; it is well-deserved. Regarding the game, we said before the game that UNICS always starts at 100% from the very beginning, so we needed to hold our ground in the first quarter. Unfortunately, we didn't execute the details of our game plan at the beginning and didn’t maintain proper focus. But at that point some players stepped up with personal plays, good individual performance, until we managed to execute game plan correctly and get a big lead. For me, the key moment was our defense in the second and third quarters when we played with great dedication, we executed everything perfectly. Now we need to forget everything. The series is only 1-0, nothing more, nothing less. We know that it’s gonna be different game in two days, and we know as a matter of fact that a big difference probably gonna work against us in a next game.

Ivan Ukhov, CSKA defenseman:

We knew UNICS would put a lot of pressure on us from the start and try to impose their style of basketball. Today, we managed to withstand that pressure and ultimately impose our style on our opponent.