By Eurohoops Team / info@eurohoops.net
After Khimki Moscow Region defeated CSKA Moscow, in the Russian derby, coach Georgios Bartzokas and Dimitris Itoudis commented on the game as well as the final two contest of the regular season.
CSKA has already clinched the first spot in the standings and could face Khimki in the quarter-finals. When asked about the possibility of facing Khimki in the playoffs, he said the following: “There is no like or not like. We have two left games, we will see. Everything is open. We don’t choose opponents. We choose just to be healthy.”
Besides, coach Dimitris Itoudis stated that his team was serious in Moscow: “We approached the game seriously. Despite the fact that we clinched the first place last game. We played very serious with all respect towards Khimki. We faced some troubles in the third quarter. We have to mention that Khimki was missing three key players (Honeycutt – Anderson- Zubkov). Despite the fact that they have great offensive players, we tried to limit them, and we did. We shared the ball pretty good when we did not turn over the ball.”
On the other hand, coach Bartzokas praised CSKA. “Congratulations to CSKA. The played excellent basketball can create miss-matches down low and take advantage of it. On the other hand, we wanted to compete. We must play in under circumstances (injuries) to challenge CSKA. Keep in mind the game with Efes was tough and tiring. Congratulations to my players for the qualification to the top-8. Hopefully, Honeycutt is coming back soon, Anderson still needs treatment, we have two more games to see who our opponent is and to fight,” he stated.
“We need to play very well; they need to play bad and right now they play with no pressure. My idea about this game was that we needed to be patient and show consistency. You have to pay if you turn the ball over,” he concluded by saying.
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