By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The play designed by Dimitris Itoudis led CSKA Moscow to the away win against Anadolu Efes. Crunch time is always crucial in basketball and the 48-year-old Greek coach made the difference in favor of his team with the play he preferred after a time out.
Ergin Ataman and the Efes players were probably expecting Nando De Colo or Sergio Rodriguez to take on the clutch shot. However, as Konstantinos Panas explains for Eurohoops, Itoudis had already made his decisions during the time out and designed the play that allowed EuroLeague’s top shooting guard to take out the opponent. He committed to the same play two days later against Fenerbahce Beko at Moscow.
Efes had just knotted the game and CSKA’s head coach had a mere few seconds to react and plan the best possible play to lead his team to the “W”. Itoudis offered many offensive options to his players and Cory Higgins ultimately penetrated the defense to make the decisive bucket.
The players of the Turkish club focused on De Colo and Rodriguez expecting one of the two to attempt the final shot. Initially CSKA tried to find an easy shot for the French star. Plan B was Alec Peters’ shot, but Higgins was the facilitator Itoudis wanted. None of the opponents were able to create a play for one of his teammates.