By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Vasilije Micic, fresh off the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague MVP of the season award put on an early bid for the Final Four MVP as well. However, CSKA Moscow nearly ruined his plans with the furious rally falling narrowly short in the first semifinal held at Lanxess Arena on Friday. Anadolu Efes held on to punch in a ticket for Sunday’s championship game.
“It was really tough,” he replied to a question on him fouling out on watching the tough last minutes from the bench, “I don’t want to make any excuses but I was really tired. I just made some unnecessary mistakes. But I’m glad that we had such a good team like we showed today.”
Micic, 27, wrapped up his semifinal effort with a team-high 25 points powered by 8/15 field goals. Late contributions by Rodrigue Beaubois and Shane Larkin eventually granted the win for the Turkish powerhouse.
“Happy for Rodri, for Shane. Of course, it wasn’t easy to watch, but in the end the most important thing today was to win and we made it,” he added, “And now we have to forget that as soon as possible.”
CSKA put up a fight and had a few solid chances to prevail in the final seconds. The Serbian guard forced to the sidelines by his fifth foul was unable to help his side remain in charge.
“It’s difficult. You have to learn from every game,” he mentioned, “Today I tried a little bit to push at the beginning to give the pace to the team. I thought I would have something left in the tank, but I definitely didn’t have it. But as I said, we really stuck together in the end. It was a really, really tough game. I want to congratulate CSKA. They didn’t give up. It was a great game to watch.”