The Russian giants CSKA (Moscow) recorded a crucial and very important victory in the Euroleague Top 16, beating at home the current champion – Real (Madrid). The final score of the meeting in group “F” (that is the second group phase of the tournament) was 95-81.
Nando de Colo was the best player of the game. The Frenchman was simply brilliant and finished with 28 points and seven assists, while his teammate Milos Teodosic scored 23 points and made 7 assists.
Kelvin Rivers scored 23 points for the “Royal Club”. His teammate Gustavo Ayon added 14 points and 10 assists, but that was not enough for Real Madrid to achieve the victory.
The first quarter of the match went equally as ten minutes after the start of the match the Russian team was down by two points – 20-22. In the second quarter The Reds didn’t drop their lead and at the end of the first half even increased their advantage to nine points – 50:41 after the excellent performances of Teodosic and de Colo.
CSKA Moscow dominated early in the third period and they got a double-digit advance, but in the last two minutes the players of Real (Madrid) activated and scored on several occasions, getting closer to their opponents – 64-71.
Everything was decided in the last quarter, when The Russian led by 15 points (85-70). Again de Colo and Teodosic were the best on the pitch, scoring from a long range strung new shooting from long range. The big advance demotivated Real Madrid players and they couldn’t do something significant till the end of the match. They were just waiting for the final whistle, which sounded at 95-81 in favour of CSKA Moscow.
‘The most important thing today is that we played excellent in defence and that’s why we won the game. I am glad that today I managed to perform at top level. I train hard every day and give everything in every game in the name of victory,’ Nando de Colo said after the game.
‘Every ball and every fight are important at this stage of the tournament and therefore you mustn’t lose your concentration until the final whistle. It’s too early to talk about the standings, because the Top 16 has just begun, but we will give everything to be at a top level in each match, in order to continue forward’, Dimitrios Itoudis said.