- Trajan, two of your three-pointer hits in the end allowed CSKA to hope for salvation ...
- We did not give up, continued to believe that we could win. And I believed. On the third throw, there was also a good opportunity to hit, but I put out my foot a little incorrectly when jumping, and the ball hit the arch. We managed to win back the gap of 10 points in the course, but we must pay tribute to the opponents, they continued to attack us.
- What was the tactical plan for the match?
- Play aggressively. Players of Panathinaikos are constantly switching in defense, we tried hard to pass the screen and go under the shield. I think that we worked well in the attack, in the end, we scored more than 90 points. They simply were not like themselves in defense, they didn’t act very wisely. But the rivals played great. When it was very difficult, they received the right to penalties.
- During difficult matches, you usually defend against the best player. What was it like against Ramunas iškauskas today?
- They play a lot of "twos", constantly put up barriers through which it is difficult to break through. One on one to defend against him almost did not have to. He attacked a lot, played great, often executed free throws and hit.
- The coach noticed that CSKA was hard due to a foul problem. How difficult was it in the physical and moral sense today?
- Really hard. During the season, we got used to a different style of basketball, a tougher defense game. Today, we were not allowed what was allowed in the previous stages. We started as usual, but soon there were problems with enumeration of fouls, and we had to rebuild. Opponents, feeling this, continued to provoke contacts and succeeded in this, for which I will pay tribute to them.
Nikolai TSYNKEVICH, Athens