By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Since 2004 and Tel Aviv’s Final Four, when Maccabi beat CSKA, the Russians had never lost a game against the Israelis in the biggest Euroleague stage. That tradition changed at Milan. Maccabi had a 4-0 lead in the start of the game, then CSKA dominated for almost 35 minutes, but in the end thanks to a Tyrese Rice lay up the Israelis got the 68-67 win
Blu was the game changer with 15 points on 5/9 shots, Sonny Weems gave a more than important lead to his team with 19.2 seconds left (67-63) but the CSKA chocked once again big time. In the end, Khryapa lost the ball and Rice had the chance to make an easy basket in transition. Weems had 5 seconds to win the game, but this time the shot didn’t go in.
It was a great came back, as CSKA led by 15 points (55-40) in the third quarter. Maccabi reacted with a 5-0 run until the end of the third period (55-45), never gave up and in the end got a place in the final.
As Sofoklis Shortsanitis said after the game: “We believed when we got within five points and big shot were made by David Blu. This team never gives up. The way we won, gives us wings. CSKA is a big club, but the way they lost, demonstrates that there is big dark cloud over them. Maybe Olympiacos has something to do with that. This is my fourth final four and my third final. Sloukas has already two Euroleague titles. I have to win, or the kid will slap me”.
Winning coach David Blatt admitted: “”When we stole the ball [on the inbounds play with 13.5 seconds left], my eyes went black. I didn’t see anything. I don’t remember the play that Tyrese Rice made. All I said was, wow, we’re going to win the game. It has to be. But I still haven’t seen the shot”.
Coach Ettore Messina said in the press conference: “Obviously my congratulations to Maccabi for this win. I don’t have much to say. It’s hard to be up for 39 minutes and then lose it in the end. For the first three quarters we played with good discipline, we were controlling the rebounding and the tempo of the game. In the last quarter we didn’t do any of those things. We gave up 23 points. We made a lot of little mistakes and that summed up one after another and that led us to losing the game. I’ve seen enough shit in my life and this is serious, but it’s handleable. This is painful. This is different”.