2018-19Regular SeasonRound 5
CSKA Moscow 69
Olympiacos Piraeus 65
November 01, 2018 CET: 18:00
Local time: 20:00 MEGASPORT ARENA

CSKA outlasts Olympiacos in battle of heavyweights

CSKA Moscow survived a stern test from visiting Olympiacos Piraeus for a 69-65 victory in a clash of titans on Thursday in the Russian capital. The result leaves CSKA undefeated through five games, while Olympiacos fell to 3-2. The decisive run was a 17-4 third-quarter surge for the hosts that Sergio Rodriguez ignited with a pair of triples. Rodriguez tied his career-high with 6 three-pointers and finished with 20 points. Will Clyburn tallied 17 points, 9 rebounds and 4 steals and Cory Higgins added 11 points for the winners. Vassilis Spanoulis paced Olympiacos with 16 points and 6 assists, Georgios Printezis scored 14 and Nigel Williams-Goss 13.

Tough defense on both sides led to a 2-2 score after three minutes before Olympiacos got going with buckets from its big men, Nikola Milutinov and Printezis and led 4-10 midway through the first quarter. Rodriguez heated up for the hosts and Clyburn threw down a wicked slam, but a Williams-Goss triple helped the Reds to a 13-15 edge after 10 minutes. Kyle Hines tied the score with the first basket of the second quarter, but another Williams-Goss three sparked a 0-7 run for the visitors. Printezis added his first three of the season for an 18-27 advantage, which prompted CSKA coach Itoudis to call timeout. Rodriguez stepped up with back-to-back threes, which helped the hosts stay close, 31-35, at halftime. Rodriguez drained his fifth and sixth triples on consecutive possessions to give CSKA its first lead of the second half, 41-39. By this point, the momentum was all with the hosts, who turned it into a 17-4 march for a 50-41 lead, which stood at 52-44 at the end of the third quarter. Zach LeDay's hustle inside kept Olympiacos alive and a Spanoulis three cut the deficit to 54-50. The legendary guard connected twice more from downtown to even the score at 61-61 with three minutes to play. Free throws by Clyburn put CSKA back in front and Olympiacos missed its next three shots as the hosts hung on for the victory.

CSKA relies on defense

A club best known for its offensive prowess, CSKA relied on defense to outlast Olympiacos. The 69 points scored was both the lowest in a home game in the Dimitris Itoudis era and also the fewest the team had scored in a victory since Itoudis took the helm in 2014.

One decisive quarter

One decisive quarter was enough for CSKA to win the game. The hosts dominated the third 21-9, but Olympiacos won each of the other three. In that one quarter, not only did CSKA make 3 of 7 shots (42.9%) from downtown, compared to 6 of 17 (35.3%) the rest of the game, but also forced Olympiacos into 7 turnovers. Olympiacos turned the ball over only 5 times in the other 30 minutes.

A night to forget for De Colo

Nando De Colo had been suffering from a migraine, which caused him to miss practice on Wednesday, but the CSKA medical staff gave him something to get him ready for the game and Coach Itoudis decided to give his All-EuroLeague guard a chance. However, he realized by halftime that De Colo simply didn't have it and did not use De Colo at all in the second half. The result was De Colo being held scoreless for the first time in 139 career EuroLeague games.

Next game

Both teams play road games next week, though their respective travel times differ greatly. CSKA visits AX Armani Exchange Olimpia Milan on Thursday. Olympiacos faces archrival Panathinaikos OPAP in the big Athens derby on Friday night.

Will Clyburn - CSKA Moscow - EB18
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Euroleague.net
Referees: HIERREZUELO, DANIEL; LOTTERMOSER, ROBERT; SILVA, SERGIO
Attendance: 9052
By Quarter1234
CSKA Moscow13182117
Olympiacos Piraeus1520921
End of Quarter1234
CSKA Moscow13315269
Olympiacos Piraeus15354465
CSKA Moscow
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
1 DE COLO, NANDO 9:37   0/1 0/1         2   1       1  
5 PETERS, ALEC 21:12 6 0/1 2/4     4 4           2 1 6
7 UKHOV, IVAN DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
11 ANTONOV, SEMEN 6:01                         2 1 -1
13 RODRIGUEZ, SERGIO 31:59 20 1/5 6/10     2 2 5 1 4     2   14
20 VORONTSEVICH, ANDREY 10:47 3   1/2     2 2               4
21 CLYBURN, WILL 35:43 17 7/10 0/2 3/4 3 6 9 1 4 2 1   2 7 29
22 HIGGINS, CORY 24:38 11 3/11 0/3 5/7 3 2 5   1 1   1 1 6 7
23 HACKETT, DANIEL 9:06   0/2 0/1     3 3           2   -2
30 KULAGIN, MIKHAIL 11:06 2 1/2 0/1             1         -1
42 HINES, KYLE 20:08 6 3/7     1 4 5 2 1       3   7
44 HUNTER, OTHELLO 19:43 4 2/3     1   1 1 1 1     3 1 3
Team           2 5 7               7
Totals 200:00 69 17/42 9/24 8/11 10 28 38 11 8 10 1 1 17 17 73
        40.5% 37.5% 72.7%
Head coach: ITOUDIS, DIMITRIS
Min: Minutes played; Pts: Points; 2FG M-A: 2-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); 3FG M-A: 3-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); FT M-A: Free Throws (Made-Attempted); Rebounds: O (Offensive), D (Defensive), T (Total); As: Assists; St: Steals; To: Turnovers; Bl: Blocks (Fv: In Favor / Ag: Against); Fouls: Cm (Commited), Rv (Received); PIR: Performance Index Rating
Olympiacos Piraeus
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
3 WILLIAMS-GOSS, NIGEL 34:01 13 2/7 3/6     3 3 3 2 1     1   11
4 TOLIOPOULOS, VASSILIS DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
6 TOUPANE, AXEL 15:33   0/1 0/4   1   1 1 1 1     2   -5
7 SPANOULIS, VASSILIS 30:04 16 2/7 3/7 3/3 1 2 3 6   3     2 5 16
10 TIMMA, JANIS 7:12   0/2       1 1         1     -2
11 MILUTINOV, NIKOLA 19:39 7 2/5   3/4 2 5 7 2 1 2       4 15
14 VEZENKOV, SASHA 10:47           4 4           1   3
15 PRINTEZIS, GEORGIOS 25:34 14 5/9 1/1 1/1 2 4 6     2     2 4 16
16 PAPANIKOLAOU, KOSTAS 20:28 7 2/2 1/5     4 4 1 1 1     5   3
17 MANTZARIS, VANGELIS 16:21   0/1       2 2   1       3   -1
31 BOGRIS, GEORGIOS DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
32 LEDAY, ZACH 20:21 8 2/5 0/1 4/6 3 2 5     2 1   1 4 9
Team           2 4 6               6
Totals 200:00 65 15/39 8/24 11/14 11 31 42 13 6 12 1 1 17 17 71
        38.5% 33.3% 78.6%
Head coach: BLATT, DAVID

Head Coaches

ITOUDIS, DIMITRIS
CSKA Moscow
"I would like to congratulate my players for another win, an important win. It was another lesson for us in different circumstances. We faced a lot of psychological difficulties in terms of missing open looks, missing layups, well-created shots. The outcome was not good in the first two quarters. At halftime we were only minus-4 and I would say only only minus-4 because when you have Cory Higgins shooting the ball 1 for 9 under the basket and some other players, then I said to them that I believe in them because I see them every day. That's not something that has to stop us. The fact that we hadn't moved the ball well and we were missing open looks costs the team, but we came out very strong and very decisive for the third quarter. We have the quality to force turnovers. I think that was the main point of emphasis, that they were being very cautious and alert. That's the only quarter that we won. It was a huge boost. That third quarter with 6 out of 10 twos and 3 out of 7 threes with 0 free throws. Today we had also to dig a lot and we saw the deep bench that we have with Misha [Kulagin] giving us 11 quality minutes, Vorontsevich scoring a very important three-pointer and rebounds and a couple of defenses. It shows we have a good rotation that is ready. I like this versatility. It's another example that we can win under 70 points."
BLATT, DAVID
Olympiacos Piraeus
"Congratulations to CSKA. Honestly, that was a very close fought game and it really could have gone either way at the end of the day. You have to play a consistent 40 minutes to beat a team of the caliber of CSKA. We played three very good quarters, but one poor quarter that CSKA played very well and that was the difference in the game. I think we feel disappointment and we should because we had the opportunity to beat a very good team today. We had 7 turnovers in the [third] quarter. They came out after halftime and recognized that they had to improve their agressivity and we played careless with the ball and lost seven balls, lost the lead that we had built and lost the momentum that we had in the game. Seven turnovers in a quarter is an enormous number, especially considering we had only 5 the rest f the game."

Players

HIGGINS, CORY
CSKA Moscow
"It was a great win for us, especially how we won it. Shots weren't falling for a lot of us. Chacho [Rodriguez] was the only one really making shots and Will [Clyburn] played great as well. But we found ways to get it done on the defensive end. It was a great win to win it in a different way."
CLYBURN, WILL
CSKA Moscow
"Defense wins games. Both teams struggled to score the ball, especially us in the first half. We picked it up in the second half. Like I said, the team that played better defense won the game. We knew [at halftime] that we had to pick it up offensively and get more aggressive. Like I said, this is a big game and every game is a dog fight. We knew that we had to pick our energy and our aggressivity up."
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