By Mehmet Bahadir Akgun/ info@eurohoops.net
CSKA Moscow forward/center Johannes Voigtmann said that he will be rooting for fellow German big man Tibor Pleiss of Anadolu Efes in the EuroLeague championship game Sunday (30/5).
“We [Germany] haven’t had a Euroleague title for a long time. I know that it will feel special for Tibor,” Voigtmann said. “I heard his post-game interview yesterday and even though he didn’t play he was very emotional. This is the city he grew up in and took his first basketball steps. I can’t imagine how it feels for him to play this game tomorrow. I root for him. I hope he’s going to lift the trophy tomorrow.”
CSKA trailed by 21 points in the mid of the third quarter before completely turning the tables and approaching by one point with a minute left to play. The “Army Men” had three opportunities to go up in the score but didn’t manage to hit the go-ahead basket.
Does Voigtmann believe that CSKA deserved to win after achieving such a comeback? “It’s tough to say who deserves to win,” he answered. “I think Efes deserved to win because they played an amazing season. After a tough start, they played amazing. They have an amazing team and the way they played yesterday for 25-30 minutes is amazing. They don’t give any chances to teams that don’t play their 100 percent and we didn’t play 100 percent for a long time yesterday. After that, we played very well. We showed our character, we showed heart and the grit we have. So, I guess we deserved to win too.
“At the end, it’s sports. Whoever scores more points wins,” Voigtmann added. “Obviously they deserved to win but it feels very bad for us because we showed a lot of effort to come back. Being that close, having three shots to win the game… it hurts, you know. But we’re going to overcome this and use as fuel for the next year.”
CSKA guard Iffe Lundberg mentioned that he felt proud for the effort his team put on the court. “Ultimately we put ourselves in this first place. It’s always tough to come back from down 21. I’m proud of the way we showed our character as a group.”
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