The palace in Krylatskoye can be congratulated on baptism. Since its discovery in the summer, the mirror ellipsoid, sparkling with blue lights in the dark near the rowing canal, has not yet seen such a stir. The parking lot near the sports complex, which seemed quite extensive during the Euroleague matches, suddenly became closer to Dmitry Khvostov's shorts put on Obinna Ekezi. And in the crowd near the ticket office, timid requests for an extra ticket were heard. By the way, the incomprehensible actions of the Dynamo management contributed to this - the lack of entry tickets for sale was strangely combined with police talks: "Run to the C2 stand without tickets!"
God be with him: it is unlikely that a lot of fans left Krylatsky for a while. Rather, it was worth regretting that we again did not see the confrontation between the teams in the strongest squads. CSKA did not have the injured Matyaz Smodis, whom Ettore Messina decided to save, but Ekazi remained in the Dynamo infirmary. In addition, Dusan Ivkovich granted leave to Sergei Monet, who became the happy father of his baby daughter (congratulations!). Alas, the losses did not end there.
The score was still ticking for the seconds of the first quarter, when Travis Hansen, unsuccessfully stepping behind Trajan Langdon, fell on the floor and was taken off the arena. “It seems like a turning point,” Ivkovic sighed at a press conference. “We will wait, of course, for the results of the research, but Travis probably dropped out for two or three months. We’ll have to look for another experienced attacking defender.”
It seems the most hassle-free position of “Dynamo” in an instant became the Achilles heel. Without Moni and Hansen, Ivkovic’s rotation options became much less. And then Boyan Popovich, who played in both “small” positions, picked up a bit early fouls. “Boyan is a great player,” Ivkovich issued the standard stamp from the set “with all due respect.” But what he did was stupid. When he had three fouls, I already sent the player to the referee's table to replace him, but Boyan managed to get a fourth foul in the attack! "
“With all due respect” from different lips sounded more than once. For example, the hosts' coach gave a compliment to his former team, noting some points that were clearly prepared specially for Dynamo. For example, the simultaneous appearance in the starting five of Theo Papaloukas and John Holden. Army Greek, usually brilliantly involved in organizing attacks, this time played the unusual role of a scorer, gaining 12 points before the break. It is curious that the Greek trinity approached the matter with particular enthusiasm: no one scored more than Papadopoulos (24 points), Papaloukas (20) and Fotsis (14).
It was the successes of Dynamo “big” that bothered Messina the most, whose team led the most of the match. David Andersen did not help at all, unable to cope with the decent load cast by Fotsis and Papadopoulos on his shoulders. For once, David, in fact, gave a breath to the young Nikita Kurbanov, who worked more clearly.
So Messina had to use it “with all due respect”: “Veterans of both teams played great, and the youth’s game became the decisive factor. I want to highlight Kurbanov and Ponkrashov - they were one of the best on the site. The guys, indeed, played not only reliably - responsibly, quite in line with the coaching principles of Signor Messina. Russian hopes were fulfilled in defense, and they were thrown just 5 times on the ring and they hit 4. Anton surprised me with a beautiful ball after a step back, which allowed me to effectively break the distance, and Nikita scored all 5 points in the third quarter, the only time in the match allowing CSKA to be double-digit - 71:61.
Interesting battles were obtained not only under the ring. The outbreak of Langdon, shooting 10 points in the first quarter, was heroically put out by Eddie Gill, previously not seen in defensive efforts. In one of the episodes, Eddie even dived to the floor for an orphaned ball - as if he was chopping off in the playoffs, and not at all in the Russian ... A lot of "flattering" about himself from Messina was heard by the best player of Europe 2006 Papaloukas, who didn’t have enough time for blue and white captain Dmitry Domani. After another tirade from the coaching bench, Papas began to run after Dima except in an embrace.
As often happens recently in matches of the championship of Russia, there were some references to refereeing. With all due respect to the rivals, of course. “CSKA is a strong team, and it got 22 fouls against our 15,” Ivkovich looked into the minutes. “But the referees gave an unsportsmanlike foul to Ivanov, technical me, they allowed me a dirty game, too many collisions. And Mr. Gorshkov did not want to whistle violations of Van den SPIEGEL on Papadopoulos. "
In the speech of the Serbian master it is worth noting another point. He correctly noted that the fate of the meeting was decided by small episodes. Not made selection, perfect loss. Ivkovic’s team showed character in the ending, but for some reason didn’t manage to use the “hot” Popovich and Papadopoulos, who were clearly ready to score points at any time. The adventurous passes of Bykov and Gill in the end cost the team too much. More than a couple of controversial whistles. With all due respect, Dushan.
Nikolai TSYNKEVICH