Awakening the beast

CSKA vs. Tsmoki Minsk: 114-81 (+33)

CSKA: James (22 + 4 rb + 2 as + 3 st), Antonov (8 + 4 pf), Hilliard (17 + 2 as), Kurbanov (9 + 5 rb + 2 as), Hines (5 as) – start; Bolomboy (16 + 3 rb), Ukhov (3 + 2 as), Strelnieks (8 + 2 as), Vorontsevich (9 + 4 as + 3 to), Hackett (13 + 4 as + 2 st + 4 pf), Lopatin (6 + 5 rb), Kulagin (3 + 3 as + 2 st + 4 pf)…

Tsmoki Minsk: Burnett (18 + 4 as + 2 st + 5 to), Salash (8 + 6 rb), Belyankov (4 + 4 pf), Mirkovic (16 + 2 as), Gavrilovic (8 + 5 rb + 2 as + 5 pf) – start; Sitnik (3), Trostinetskiy (1), Stabrovskiy (3), Rogozenko (0), Abrams (5), Veremeyenko (9 + 7 rb + 4 pf), Pustogvar (6 + 4 pf)…

Congratulations to the team for the win and attitude in three quarters. We started really bad, and I wanted to challenge the players, to see how they will operate when Tsmoki are hitting every shot, even contested ones. They made 4 out of 5 three-pointers in the first quarter, 8 out of 11 at halftime, good for 73%. In the second half they made just one three-pointer and scored 29 points – one less than in the opening quarter alone. This shows the change in attitude, the serious defense that we played. We are in the mode when we have ups and downs. We are still creating bonds. It was a good game for this, we fought against good opponent and practiced real situations. We had 29 assists, 9 steals, 11 turnovers which is good numbers. We had many creators, direct and indirect, only two players, Bolomboy and Antonov, left the floor with no assists, but that doesn’t say that they played selfish. I would like to thank two thousands fans that came to support us.