Affair of honour

CSKA vs Zalgiris game in the final round of the Euroleague Top 16 is meaningless for standings but promises to be the real battle. The clubs had never played at give-away.

Neck pains, which did not let Ramunas Siskauskas to play in a game against Yenisey on Saturday, are almost gone, and the decision on forward’s participation in a meeting with his compatriots will be taken on a game day. The roster will miss Artem Zabelin who was sent to the junior team to help it in a couple of important games vs Triumph-2. At the same time Zalgiris has no significant injuries.

“We should play our best defense from minute one to win the game, - Evgeny Pashutin said. We do not want to find ourselves in the same situation as it was in Kaunas where we were down by 15 in the first half. Zalgiris changed the head coach again, and the team is in good shape – they proved that by beating both Unicaja and Prokom recently. Salenga and Brown are dangerous, Watson’s return adds them some aggressiveness under the baskets. We will try to avoid letting their leaders to make open shots and to defend the paint better.”