By Niki Bakouli
As you might have guessed (or got to learn, after you read the stories about Game 1 of Euroleague’s play offs), CSKA Moscow won over Bilbao (98-71), with Jonas Kazlauskas’s players offering too many highlights to the fans, all around Europe. But we have an objection. And here it is…
CSKA Moscow was already one of the favourites to reach this year’s Final Four, long before this season even began. Not just because this is the story of Russians’s life –as a traditional powerhouse of Europe-, but because they managed to have a distinguished roster. And they have very particular goals. Something was clear enough when Andrey Kirilenko chose to stay in Moscow and fight for Euroleague’s title, rather than go back to the NBA -after the end of the lock out where he could find a huge, by all means, contract.
They completed the regular season without a defeat and they had just one bad result at Top 16, a L from Galatasaray. But still they were at first place of their group, so they got home court advantage for the play offs. This is not the first time CSKA Moscow managed to reach Euroleague’s play offs without losing too many games, during regular season and Top 16. It’s the second. In season 2004-05, they got to the play offs… almost undefeated (only Barcelona won them in the Top 16) and… they saw Tau Ceramica (back then, Caja Laboral today), go to the Final of the Final Four at Moscow.
Now, lets see something else which makes obvious that the “army’s team” has to lose now –cause it would be better now than later. CSKA Moscow is the only team at Euroleague’s history which qualified to Final Four through best of five series, without losing a game (with 3-0). It was in season 2008-09, when they got to go to Berlin for the Final Four, after beating three straight times Partizan and… they lost the title from Panathinaikos, at the Final.