By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net‘
CSKA Moscow faced heavy opposition by Zalgiris Kaunas at home, but ultimately managed to prevail 95 – 86 . Make no mistake though, this victory came much more difficult than what the final score shows.
For about 30 minutes, the Lithuanians were the ones controlling most aspects of the game, particularly thanks to an amazing Paulius Jankunas (30 points, a Euroleague career high, plus 8 rebounds), solid execution from mid or long range and excellent read of the opposing defense.
Milos Teodosic (25 points, 5 assists) seemed to be fighting all alone for the Russians, playing also for the injured Nando De Colo, but in the fourth quarter the… cavalry arrived in the face of Aaron Jackson and Jeff Ayres.
The experienced point guard provided precious helps for his team attacking the basket aggressively in order to score 19 points. Ayres put some great energy on court, dominated the paint, gave some precious rebounding help (7) and forced coach Jasikevicius’ players to make him one foul after the other, hence his 13 points with 11/12 from the line.
With these two making most of the dirty job and Milos always there for a touch of splash, the Russian completed a key 11 – 2 partial score to transform the 69 – 72 into 80 – 74, with 5 minutes left. Zalgiris tried to fight back but seemed out of stamina and missing key shots and CSKA successfully preserved an advantage until the end.