Writing from Berlin: Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
This time CSKA Moscow closed the game the right way. After the traumatic semifinals of 2015 and 2014 when CSKA commited suicide against Olympiacos and Maccabi Tel Aviv respectively, the “Army team” is back in the Final thanks to its French artillery.
Nando De Colo had an amazing performance with 30 points on 11 out of 18 shots as he led CSKA Moscow to the 88-81 win. Those 30 points are a record performance in a modern Euroleague semifinal. For the losing side Malcolm Delaney had 26 points on 12/12 free throws, 4/9 threes, but 1/7 two-point shots. Still this was the first time since 2001 that two players from opposing teams scored at least 26 points in a semifinal. Dontaye Draper with 17 points did his best for Lokomotiv, but it was not enough.
CSKA Moscow dominated the first half, which was completed with a 47-37 lead after having even a 15 points advantage. De Colo had 10 points and 3 assists in the first 20 minutes of action and during this time, Lokomotiv Kuban had 16 rebounds, 12 of them offensive (!) and just 4 defensive, beacuse CSKA Moscow was shooting with an amazing 75% efficiency in two pointers (12/16) and 6/14 threes. The team of coach Bartzokas couldn’t get stops in defense, while Kyle Hines and Nikita Kurbanov were the keys in the solid CSKA defense.
Lokomotiv tried to turn things around and cut the lead even to six points (60-54) during the third quarter. However, De Colo couldn’t be denied, he made all the big shots and the third period ended with a 10 points advantage for CSKA (69-59) after a buzzer beating three for Lokomotiv by Draper.
With the game still on the line CSKA had a 9-3 run, which was concluded with a three made again by the French star (78-62). The “ghosts” of CSKA tried to appear when “Loko” cut the lead to 7 points with less than two minutes left (82-75), but this time the story was different. With 35 seconds left, Delaney made it a five points game (84-79) after two free throws, Milos Teodosic answered also with two made free throws (86-79) and the game was over.