UNICS — CSKA, 28 January 2022

UNICS Kazan – CSKA: 75-86 (+11)

UNICS: Brown (1 + 3 rb + 3 as + 4 pf), Brown (21 + 3 rb + 9 as), Hezonja (21 + 9 rb + 3 as + 2 st + 5 to + 5 pf), Uzinskiy (8), Vorontsevich (2 + 6 rb) – start; Spissu (0), Brantley (9 + 4 rb + 4 pf), Zaytsev (DNP), Klimenko (DNP), Jekiri (11 + 4 rb + 3 bs), Mayo (2 + 3 rb), Komolov (DNP)…

CSKA: Hackett (5 + 5 as + 4 pf), Voigtmann (8 + 4 rb + 2 st), Milutinov (17 + 7 rb + 2 as + 2 bs), Kurbanov (6 + 3 as), Shved (27) – start; Lundberg (7), Bolomboy (3 rb), Khomenko (0), Ivlev (DNP), Antonov (0), Clyburn (16 + 3 rb + 4 as), Lopatin (0)…

Dimitris Itoudis, CSKA head coach:

Congratulations to our club and our team. The players came over here decisive and determined to give a battle, to match the aggressivity and physicality that UNICS has demonstrated for last months. Obviously we came here shorthanded but the players that were here matter, they were decisive and stayed together. We set the tone from the beginning and even though we’ve lost the first quarter, from there and on we set the tone defensively, we’ve kept them low in the second quarter, that was the key for us to feel the game, the things we can do offensively and defensively. In the third quarter both team had good shooting percentages, they were making shots from the perimeter, executing plays around the paint. Overall, we pushed them, we created turnovers, we generated [offense] from there, it was 13 to 8, we took care of the ball making just 4 turnovers in the first half and 4 in the second, we were shooting our spot shots well after creating them, we were punishing the mismatches due to switch defense that they had chosen. Actually, this is the main defense that UNICS is playing this year. It was good domination of Niko and the other bigs in the paint, our guards were passing them the ball pretty good. So again congratulations to the team, to the players for the fight and the win.