By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Five players scored in double figures as CSKA Moscow defeated Crvena Zvezda 87 – 72 to capture its second consecutive win and improve its EuroLeague record to 20 – 10 and retain the second spot in the EuroLeague standings.
Tornike Shengelia led his team’s balanced offense with 16 points along with seven rebounds. Daniel Hackett (15 points, six rebounds), Johannes Voigtmann (14 points, six rebounds), Will Clyburn (14 points, five rebounds) and Mike James (13 points) were also the rest of the key pieces of CSKA. The Russian team was missing big man Joel Bolomboy who will be out long term with a foot injury.
“I think that if we play this level of defense against anybody, offensively we have enough weapons to go and score enough, but we have to make a lot of stops and play defense as a team,” Shengelia said.
Dejan Davidovac recorded a EuroLeague career-high 20 points and Landry Nnoko posted 12 points and 10 rebounds for already eliminated Crvena Zvezda that tried to put up a fight against its superior opponent in the second half.
CSKA led by 17 in the second period and was up 74 – 59 early in the fourth period. Red Star had a 0 – 7 run to cut the deficit to three possessions but the hosts repelled their efforts to once again assume a double-digit lead and preserve it until the end.
“They got a lot of rebounds, and the second half was also better in that case, but they controlled the game and deserved to win tonight,” Crvena Zvezda coach Dejan Radonjic said. “We will use all games to try to play in the best possible way, to give our maximum. We always have motivation to play the EuroLeague competition, to be on the court, and we will play all three [remaining] games giving our maximum.”
Overcoming adversities
CSKA has had its share of injury problem this season with Bolomboy being the last to be added on a long list of Army Men players that have been missing multiple games. Dimitris Itoudis hopes to see these difficulties getting transformed into extra motivation for his players.
“First of all, I congratulate my team. We played much better defense in the second half,” Itoudis said. “We could have had a better outcome on the offensive end, but my team was concentrated to defend. We gave up 33 points [in the second half] and that is what gave us the boost to win this game. I can’t say much [about Joel Bolomboy’s injury] because right now, we are in the process of evaluating but thank God, it is not broken. Joel is a strong guy and is going to come back healthy. This year is amazing, how it went with injuries, but we keep believing on ourselves and my players are having a huge – a tremendous, I would say – belief in the team’s potential and this is what it is, staying positive, try to actually accept each and every obstacle as an opportunity and try to grow. And this is what we are going to do now.”
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball