Will is back. Now we getting the game back
CSKA – Zenit St.Petersburg: 71-74 (-3)
CSKA: Bolomboy (6 + 3 rb), Hilliard (13 + 5 rb), Hackett (14 + 5 as + 3 to + 4 pf), Antonov (3), Kurbanov (5 + 2 as + 4 pf) – start; Khomenko (0), Strelnieks (3 + 2 as), Voigtmann (19 + 8 rb + 2 bs), Kochergin (DNP), Clyburn (8 + 2 st), Konovalov (DNP), Yevseyev (DNP)…
Zenit: Pangos (17 + 4 rb + 6 as), Hollins (13), Thomas (13 + 7 rb + 2 as + 4 to), Ponitka (3 + 5 rb + 2 st + 4 pf), Gudaitis (10 + 9 rb + 4 bs) – start; Rivers (2 + 4 pf), Zaharov (3 + 4 as + 2 st), Fridzon (7), Volkhin (0), Khvostov (DNP), Pushkov (4), Trushkin (2)…
Dimitris Itoudis, CSKA head coach:
Congratulations to Zenit, Xavi and his staff. I can’t be mad at my players, I can only regret the lapses we had, especially in the second quarter. Defensively and offensively we were soft. We may say about circumstances but in general the jerseys we wear, they do not allow anybody, those who are playing or not, not to defend those colors, not to play hard. Those lapses gave the opportunity to a high-quality team, Zenit to take the lead and raise it to double digits, +16. They scored a lot of points off turnovers, there were several floppy plays by us on defense… We are in the situation when a lot of players who had certain roles on the team, they are called to take the rabbits out of their hats. It’s not easy. Khoma had good looks, he missed some shots as he also did in Kalev game. The second unit have to pick up [the rhythm] and do things. Khoma is playing a hell of a defense, we started from that and showed character. Third quarter ended with us losing it by 3, but it showed us the way, this is why the team never gave up even being down 16. I’ll take positive facts out of that, I am waiting for players to gather again, because this team have proved that when we are altogether healthy mind and body, we can play good basketball. We have a period with postponed game, we will have new guys and we will work on that. We also have a window for National Teams, it will put us a bit back in means of unity, but it is what it is.
