By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
CSKA Moscow and Darussafaka Dogus entered their EuroLeague Round 27 game looking for different kind of profits from a possible victory. The Russians wanted to remain at the top of the standings, while their opponents to preserve some serious playoffs hopes.
With Milos Teodosic posting his sixth double-double (20 points, 10 assists) of the season, the defending champions won 95 – 85, perhaps in a manner far easier than what the final score shows and improved their record to 20 – 7.
Despite the 26 points and a Euroleague individual record of eight 3-pointers by Scottie Wilbekin, David Blatt’s squad stayed at 13 wins and is looking for something more than a 3 – 0 in the remaining games to advance.
Dacka also needs Anadolu Efes to remain winless and at the same time beating them with a 8+ margin to get the tie-breaking advantage. Not easy at all.
On to the match at hand, CSKA was simply too hot to handle by the Turkish squad. With Nando De Colo (17 points, 9 assists) and Kyle Hines (17 points, 8 rebounds) also doing damage apart from Milos, CSKA closed halftime 47 – 35 while Dacka’s main weapons fell silent.
That changed a bit in the third period when Will Clyburn (13 points, 5 rebounds) and Brad Wanamaker (10 ponts, 6 assists) were energized to provide an assistance to Wilbekin as their team cut its deficit to six, 68 – 62, entering the fourth quarter.
Yet CSKA quickly reestablished a double-digit lead and made it an 18-point game 87 – 69 in the mid of the last period. There was no way that Dacka could fully recover from that, managing only to trim it a bit in the final minutes.