Great game for the start of the season

CSKA vs. Khimki (Moscow region): 100-93 (+7)

CSKA: De Colo (18 + 3 rb + 7 as + 4 to), Teodosic (15 + 4 rb + 6 as + 4 to), Fridzon (13 + 3 rb), Nichols (14), Jackson (4), Korobkov (4), Vorontsevich (10 + 5 rb), Higgins (7 + 3 rb), Kurbanov (5), Hines (10 + 3 st)…

Khimki: Rice (14 + 7 as + 3 to), Shved (5 + 3 rb), Augustine (10 + 8 rb), Koponen (21 + 5 as + 3 to + 5 pf), Vyaltsev (11 + 4 pf), Il’nitskiy (2), Monya (2 + 3 rb), Todorovic (12 + 3 rb), Honeycutt (2), Davis (14 + 6 rb + 3 to + 4 pf)…

Congratulations to my players: the showed desire to win from the very beginning. We set the tone off defense and played well on offense driving the ball, setting screens, scoring from outside so that we score almost 60 points in the first half. Still we expected that Khimki, well-coached by Rimas Kurtinaitis, will find a way to get back into game, to make us turn the ball over. And in the last quarter despite the fact that we had our best ball-handlers on the floor we made some turnovers. Still I am happy with the decision made by the players in the crunch time. Probably we could have won the game earlier but it is very difficult when you play against such a strong team. We still have a lot of work to do including the work to improve the team’s chemistry. The fans created great atmosphere tonight. I am sure they liked the game as all the fans around Europe who know what does CSKA – Khimki games mean. It is great to see that we get support from the representatives of CSKA from other sports – football, ice hockey. Me, coaching staff, players – we also try to visit our friends’ games when we can.