Leaders’ clash as it should be

CSKA Moscow vs. Real Madrid: 91-90 (+1)

CSKA: De Colo (28 + 6 rb + 4 to), Teodosic (15 + 3 rb + 6 as + 6 to), Augustine (3), Fridzon (9), Vorontsevich (2), Higgins (6 + 4 pf), Khryapa (5 + 7 rb + 4 as), Kurbanov (13 + 8 rb), Hines (10 + 4 rb + 4 pf)…

Real Madrid: Randolph (8 + 4 as + 4 to + 4 pf), Draper (3 st), Fernandez (6), Nocioni (3), Doncic (9 + 8 rb), Maciulis (11 + 6 rb), Reyes (7 + 3 to + 4 pf), Ayon (10 + 7 rb + 4 pf), Carrol (13), Hunter (2 + 4 rb), Llull (21 + 7 as)…

Obviously we had a very good start, 6-0. We played against a very competitive, a very quality team that has everything in each spot. I would say for tonight’s game that we had a kind of bad start, sloppy; we had a lack of concentration, athleticism, giving them exactly what their best part of their game is, which is the open court, offensive rebounds. So we gave up a lot of easy points there. Then we wasted a lot of energy to come back, from minus-10 we were plus-11 in five, six minutes. That was a totally picture in that second quarter with a 32-12 defensively and offensively. That put us up and it was a good outcome, but we talked in the locker room that we have to take care of the ball. Obviously with 10 turnovers we had total in the second half and 16, it hurt us a lot because a lot of turnovers in the third quarter and fourth quarter, we couldn’t defend them; we just gave them the ball and they attacked in the open court one- zero or two-zero. We always had the lead, we controlled the game. It was a close game at the end, but overall the victory was in our hands and we controlled the game pretty much at the end of the game. We will take a lot of good lessons from this game.