By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
CSKA Moscow survived Crvena Zvezda and with a 2-0 lead, they need one win in the next three games – two on the road – in order to qualify to Berlin.
As coach Dimitris Itoudis said: “I am proud of my team. When you hear what Aaron Jackson says, you see what we have in the locker room. We have a team. This is playoffs. People that are playing certain amount minutes in back-to-back games; they will not always have their best performance, but you need more people to step up and be in the equation. I said that after Game 1, and today we have that, and I am proud of that. This is a great lesson. No one said [the] series will be a walk in the park. I have a huge respect to the game, and to the opponent’s coaches, opponent’s players, and the opposing team. We have a 2-0 series lead, that is also for congratulations. We are one win away from the Final Four. We know it is not going to be easy. We go to our routine, analyzing, talking and preparing for the third game. The fans really helped us in those crucial moments, like they played defense with us at the same time. We put them in the equation, also. In the game, we had defensive problems in the second quarter. We said at halftime we had to change our defensive mode. And we changed it. In the entire second half we gave up 28 points. We forced turnovers, and created with our defensive performance. We had like an extra defender on our defense. Offensively we have the talent to do things, and it is something we will work on before going to Belgrade.”
The coach of Crvena Zvezda Dejan Radonjic supported his player, Stefan Jovic, who made the most crucial turnover of the game with 2.9 seconds left: “Congratulations to CSKA on the victory and 2-0 lead. We played even better on defense than in Game 1. Tonight we managed to hold CSKA to even fewer points, and they have the best offense in the Euroleague. We played good from the start, well and smart on offense. We had offensive problems in the third quarter, but managed to get into a dramatic finale and come a possession away from victory. Regardless, we showed again a good game in the Euroleague. In Belgrade, we will try to show our maximum. On the final possession, Jovic had the ball because he was in the best momentum and scored clutch points before that. It was a logical decision that the ball was in his hands. He played an excellent match. ”
As for CSKA’s guard Aaron Jackson, he was just happy to get this win: “It was a good game from both teams. In the first half we did not play our best basketball. Zvezda did a real good job of pressuring us and causing turnovers. Coming out of the locker room, we did a real good job of making adjustments, picking up on defense and being aggressive. It was a great team performance. You got to expect, when you have Nando and Teo who are easily the top backcourt in Europe, that Zvezda will be focusing on them, and they did a good job of doing that. We need to support them, and we made some good decisions on the bench. We know those two are our guys, we need them for the next game. We have to go to Serbia and play good basketball.”