By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Mike James scored a season-high 33 points as CSKA Moscow beat Baskonia 94-90 at home to close the first double-game week of the year with two wins. The “Army Men” improved to 14 – 6.
Baskonia made a 0 – 12 run when down 88 – 71 and 3:21 to approach by five thanks to triples by Matt Janning. With the score 88 – 83 and 36 seconds left on the clock, Kyle Hines scored the basket to put CSKA at a three-possession distance and later James secured his team’s win with four free throws.
“I’m happy we got the win”, said James who reached the milestone of 2.000 Euroleague points. “We didn’t close it out as we should but teams can go on runs when they’re down and try to come back, so I’m happy to win. I knew I was close to 2,000 points but I didn’t know how close, but it’s cool! It took me six years to get here and don’t know if I have six more years in me!”
The trip to Russia found Baskonia with 0/2 since the team had lost to Zenit St. Petersburg on Tuesday. Now, the playoff-aspiring Basque side is 7 – 13 and near the last spots of the EuroLeague standings.
Youssoupha Fall notched his first double-double this season with 19 points and 10 boards, Pierria Henry had 18 points and nine rebounds while Janning and Tornike Shengelia scored 12 points apiece for Baskonia. The latter also grabbed five rebounds.
Darrun Hilliard contributed 14 points on 4/5 triples to the victory of CSKA and Johannes Voigtmann posted 10 points plus five rebounds against his former team.
“We cannot stop playing”
For CSKA coach Dimitris Itoudis, the story of the game was defense and of course the way his team handled the final five minutes of the game: “We had a slow start but managed to win the first quarter, and then we established a much better defensive attitude, better rotations, ball pressure, and deflections. We kept them really low and built a good margin, we were close to 20 points up. But then we stopped playing. We cannot underestimate people and this is something we have to work on. Congrats for the win, back to back wins are important. And I don’t only want to talk about the end because the other 35 minutes also existed, but the game gives us this: we cannot stop playing.”
Photo credit: EuroLeague