Playoffs start at home

CSKA vs. Olympiacos (Piraeus): 76-70 (+6)

CSKA: De Colo (7), Teodosic (14 + 5 rb + 7 as), Fridzon (2), Nichols (2), Jackson (6), Weems (16), Vorontsevich (3 + 3 rb), Kaun (16 + 8 rb), Khryapa (3 rb), Hines (3 rb), Kirilenko (10 + 9 rb)…

Olympiacos: Hunter (5 + 3 rb), Dunston (6 + 4 rb), Papapetrou (5 + 4 rb), Sloukas (12 + 4 as), Printezis (16 + 5 rb), Mantzaris (2 + 3 rb + 4 pf), Lafayette (6 + 4 rb + 5 as + 5 pf), Darden (2), Lojeski (16 + 6 rb)…

Congratulations to my team, we secured home-court advantage with one game until the end in very tough group. All Top 16 showed that any team can beat anyone at home and on the road. Tonight the game pretty much looked like the one in Pireaus – one team had more offensive rebounds and the other lost the ball too much times. But this time it was us on better side. We took 19 offensive boards and make the opponent to turn the ball over using our size and creating deflections. That gave us many extra possessions. I kept telling to the players during the game that we play good defense and we have to move the ball better to create good shots. We scored just 12 points in the third quarter but the numbers do not reflect the reality. We missed many open shots so we had to wait until the fourth quarter to establish control over the game. I would like to thank the fans. We need their voices and enthusiasm for 40 minutes to fight against good teams, we have important games coming and we will need their help again very soon.

Congratulation to CSKA, our opponents played better most of the game and deserved to win. We knew that we are on difficult mission, it is very difficult to win in Moscow. We played with better concentration, defended well during the game with exclusion of starts of first and third quarters when we lacked focus and had bad starts. CSKA raised the margin twice and both times we managed to stay in the game, fought until the very end. Rebounding was an important factor tonight. We allowed 19 offensive rebounds and gave up many second chance points.