By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
CSKA Moscow crushed Unicaja on the road 89 – 80 with a great offensive performance. The guests won their seventh straight game in Malaga and improved to a 7-2 record while Joan Plaza’s men fell to a 3-6 record after the final game of Round 9 on EuroLeague.
The star: Sergio Rodriguez led CSKA in Spain with 21 points and 4 assists. Cory Higgins contributed with 14 while Nando De Colo and Andrei Vorontsevitch added 13 each.
The key: Rodriguez and De Colo scored successive three-pointers to take the lead and Unicaja couldn’t come back after that (79 – 74, 36′). Those shots were part of a decisive 11-3 run in the last minutes.
That’s how the game pretty much started. CSKA reached an early double-digit lead (14-4, 4′). Unicaja reacted in the second quarter with 12 consecutive points and leveled the match (38 – 37, 17′) before Andrey Vorontsevitch started his show from beyond the arc.
The guests began the third quarter leading 46 – 39 but Nando de Colo’s turnovers (8 in total) kept Unicaja close on the scoreboard. Ray McCallum dropped back-to-back layups while getting fouled and Malaga took the advantage (57 – 63, 27′).
The game was close until the end, with both teams exchanging leads the entire fourth quarter but at the end, CSKA escaped with the win.
Not enough: James Augustine paced the hosts against his former teammates with 18 points and 9 rebounds. Adam Waczynski and Carlos Suarez scored 15 and 13 respectively for Unicaja.