Staying first

CSKA vs. Zalgiris (Kaunas): 100-86 (+14)

CSKA: De Colo (26 + 7 rb + 4 to), Teodosic (15 + 4 rb + 4 as + 4 to), Fridzon (12 + 4 rb), Nichols (6), Korobkov (2), Vorontsevich (9), Higgins (5), Kurbanov (11 + 5 rb), Hines (14 + 5 rb)…

Zalgiris: Randle (10), Vene (2), Lekavicius (7), Seibutis (4 + 3 rb + 4 pf), Motum (13), Jankunas (8 + 6 rb + 4 as), Vougioukas (13 + 7 rb + 2 bs), Lipkevicius (2), Vecvagars (7), Hanlan (15 + 3 rb + 6 as + 3 to + 4 pf), Ulanovas (5 + 5 rb)…

I would like to say congratulations to everyone. We secured home-court advantage in very, very, very tough group. Please, pay attention, that we were the first team in our group to qualify, and we are the first to clinch home-court advantage. That says a lot. So I would like to thank our players, coaches, management and the fans who created great atmosphere again, who lifted the team. Even though we prepared carefully for the game, we were aware that Zalgiris has talent and plays with no pressure. We were dominant in Kaunas on both ends of the floor, but here the opponents showed that they have pride and competitiveness. They beat Olympiacos by 20, they beat Brose Baskets, they had chances against Laboral on the road. In the first half of this game we lacked effectiveness and aggressiveness on defense, we talked about it in half time, we knew that it has to be changed. And we showed immediately what we want and what we can take out of our approach; we won the third quarter 27-13, went up by 15 and controlled the game after that. It is not easy, guys. We still live in reality where we have injuries. But we don’t talk about those who are not playing, the thing that matters is who is playing. We appreciate what we have. We appreciate the effort of the guys who we don’t have now. We have one game left in the group, we go to face Olympiacos and we will see who is our opponent after that.