Writing from Berlin: Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
For many years Dimitris Itoudis was Zeljko Obradovic assistant. Now if they both win the semifinals, they can face each other in the Euroleague final, something that Itoudis would like.
As the Greek coach of CSKA Moscow said in the press conference: “It’s nice that I met Zoc here because we had a lot of time to meet each other. I wish to be opponenents in the final”.
CSKA Moscow after all is ready to go: “I’m happy for my players who made it though all these injuries. I said to Kyle Hines once “if you ask my heart, I’ll give it to you. There aren’t many secrets between us and Lokomotiv. I’ve been in this situation again in Berlin in 2009 in the game Panathinaikos vs Olympiacos, with two countries from the same country in the semifinals. It’s not the same in Greece and Russia”.
Lokomotiv Kuban’s coach Giorgos Bartzokas agreed but added: “It is very difficult to face a situaton of being coach of a Russian team battling another Russian team in a semifinal”. And he joked with his former player in Olympiacos and defender of the year Kyle Hines, who is now a member of CSKA Moscow: “It’s not easy to score against Hines. But we will try. It was difficult to make a team based on defense. We have great offensive players but needed to play defense”.