2012-13PlayoffsGame 3
Laboral Kutxa Vitoria 93
CSKA Moscow 72
April 17, 2013 CET: 20:45
Local time: 20:45 FERNANDO BUESA ARENA

Caja Laboral routs CSKA by 21 to force Game 4

Caja Laboral Vitoria avoided elimination and continues to fight for a Final Four berth after tying a franchise playoff record of 15 three-pointers in a 93-72 rout of CSKA Moscow in Game 3 of their best-of-five playoffs series at Fernando Buesa Arena in Vitoria, Spain on Wednesday night. CSKA suffered its worst defeat in playoffs history, but still holds a 2-1 lead in the series. Laboral hosts Game 4 on Friday, while a potential Game 5 would be played next week in Moscow. Laboral took the lead for good in the first quarter with triples from Nemanja and Milko Bjelica and pulled away in the second quarter with a 13-1 run that got them to 32-17 lead. With some impressive defense that held Sasha Kaun and Viktor Khryapa scoreless, and after Thomas Heurtel’s run of 8 points just before halftime, Laboral took a 19-point lead into the break. The hosts cruised to a big victory in the second half, with their lead reaching as many as 34 points before CSKA cut it in the fourth quarter. Heurtel bagged 21 points on 5-of-6 three-point shooting, while Milko Bjelica had 15 points in 15 minutes on the floor, shooting 3 for 3 behind the arc. Nemanja Bjelica had 13 points and 7 rebounds, all in the first half, and Andres Nocioni chipped in with 10 points in victory. Nenad Krstic scored 12 for CSKA, Vladimir Micov and Aaron Jackson each had 11, while Sonny Weems and Zoran Erceg scored 10 apiece in defeat.

First quarter: Bjelica and Bjelica push the hosts in front

Neither team scored for almost two minutes at the start of the game before Weems nailed a jumper to start the scoring. Nocion made a fastbreak layup to open Laboral's account, but offenses struggled early on and baskets were few and far between on both ends of the floor. Weems drove baseline for a dunk and 4-4, but Milko Bjelica and Nemanja Bjelica each nailed a triple, and 2 free throws from Nocioni put the hosts up 12-4. With some physical defense, Laboral kept CSKA without a field goal for more than four minutes, before Milos Teodosic snapped the visitors’ scoring drought with a jumper. He added couple of foul shots to the tally, but Nemanja Bjelica sank another triple for 15-8. However, in the final 50 seconds of the quarter, Krstic scored from close range and Teodosic from long range, cutting it to 15-14 after 10 minutes.

Second quarter: 17-3 run puts Vitoria in control

Nemanja Bjelica hit a jumper to open the second quarter and Heurtel drove for a layup and 19-14. Krstic and Tibor Pleiss traded baskets inside as both teams seemed to get into their offensive rhythm, but the hosts pulled away. Fernando San Emeterio made 2 foul shots and Nemanja Bjelica’s tough floater extended Laboral’s lead to 25-17. With emotions starting to run high, Teodosic and San Emeterio got into a face-to-face argument, and Laboral coach Zan Tabak was awarded a technical. But, in between those two, San Emeterio hit a long jumper, Maciej Lampe made a shot from close range, and Nemanja Bjelica nailed his third shot from behind the arc for 32-17. CSKA’s only field goal in the final nine minutes of the half was a jumper from Weems for 34-21, but before the quarter’s end Heurtel got red-hot, sinking a couple of triples and a jumper and giving the hosts 43-24 halftime lead.

Third quarter: Laboral builds a 33-point lead

Erceg opened the third quarter with a layup, but Nocioni’s triple and a pair of fouls shots from Milko Bjelica made it 48-26. After a layup from Teodosic, Lampe answered with a basket inside, before Fabien Causeur made layup, then missed additional free throw, but grabbed his miss and nailed a triple for 55-30. Krstic tried to get the visitors going with a basket-plus-foul, but back-to-back-to-back triples from San Emeterio, Milko Bjelica and Omar Cook extended it to 70-37. Aaron Jackson finished the quarter with a layup, making it 70-39 after 30 minutes.

Fourth quarter: Triples rain down as hosts wrap up win

Milko Bjelica nailed a triple to open the fourth quarter, and Vladimir Micov answered from downtown for the visitors. With minds already on Game 4 and most of the starters already sitting on the bench, Dmitry Sokolov, Erceg and Anton Ponkrashov all scored baskets inside, and Micov hit another triple for 77-52. Tibor Pleiss scored three times inside for Laboral, including a basket-plus-foul, to help keep the margin in the 20s, while Sokolov made a dunk and Erceg and Jackson nailed triples for the visitors, 84-62. Micov made a layup and Ponkrashov hit CSKA’s fifth triple of the final quarter, but the game was already out of hand for the visitors. Heurtel and Jackson traded triples, before Heurtel rounded out the scoring hitting twice more from long range.

Andres Nocioni - Caja Laboral - EB12
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Euroleague.net
Referees: BELOSEVIC, ILIJA; RADOVIC, SRETEN; KOROMILAS, ELIAS
Attendance: 12089
By Quarter1234
Laboral Kutxa Vitoria15282723
CSKA Moscow14101533
End of Quarter1234
Laboral Kutxa Vitoria15437093
CSKA Moscow14243972
Laboral Kutxa Vitoria
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
00 COOK, OMAR 18:36 5   1/4 2/2       3 1       2 1 5
5 NOCIONI, ANDRES 23:12 10 1/5 1/3 5/6 1 4 5   1       2 3 10
11 BJELICA, MILKO 15:09 15 1/3 3/3 4/5 2 1 3 1 1 2     3 3 15
19 SAN EMETERIO, FERNANDO 21:15 9 2/3 1/2 2/2 1   1           2 5 11
21 PLEISS, TIBOR 18:51 9 4/4   1/1   1 1 2   1 1   4 1 9
22 HEURTEL, THOMAS 21:24 21 3/5 5/6     1 1 2 1 1   1 3   17
25 JELINEK, DAVID 9:59   0/1 0/1         1 1       1   -1
30 LAMPE, MACIEJ 19:45 6 3/8     4 4 8   1 1 2 2 2 1 8
42 CALBARRO, UNAI 1:24                              
44 BJELICA, NEMANJA 24:51 13 2/2 3/4     7 7 1   1     2   17
55 CAUSEUR, FABIEN 25:34 5 1/2 1/3 0/1 1 3 4 3   2     4 1 3
Team           1 4 5           1   4
Totals 200:00 93 17/33 15/26 14/17 10 25 35 13 6 8 3 3 26 15 98
        51.5% 57.7% 82.4%
Head coach: TABAK, ZAN
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
CSKA Moscow
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
4 TEODOSIC, MILOS 20:08 9 2/5 1/3 2/2   1 1 2   1   1 3 1 3
5 MICOV, VLADIMIR 28:07 11 1/4 2/6 3/4 3 1 4 3 1 1   1 2 2 9
7 JACKSON, AARON 17:28 11 2/2 2/2 1/2   2 2 1   1       1 13
11 SOKOLOV, DMITRY 9:59 4 2/2     2   2           1 2 7
12 KRSTIC, NENAD 21:21 12 4/9   4/7 2 3 5   1   1   2 7 16
13 WEEMS, SONNY 22:19 10 3/7 0/4 4/4 2 2 4     1       1 6
17 ERCEG, ZORAN 22:50 10 2/3 1/5 3/3 1 3 4   1 1     2 4 11
20 VORONTSEVICH, ANDREY 7:45   0/1 0/1               1       -1
24 KAUN, SASHA 11:22   0/2     1 1 2     1     3 2 -2
31 KHRYAPA, VICTOR 17:24     0/1     4 4 1 1       3 1 3
33 PONKRASHOV, ANTON 12:09 5 1/2 1/3     1 1 5     1     2 11
44 PAPALOUKAS, THEODOROS 9:08   0/1       1 1 1       1   1 1
Team           2   2               2
Totals 200:00 72 17/38 7/25 17/22 13 19 32 13 4 6 3 3 16 24 79
        44.7% 28% 77.3%
Head coach: MESSINA, ETTORE

Head Coaches

TABAK, ZAN
Laboral Kutxa Vitoria
"As I said in the previous days, neither what we saw in Moscow, nor what we saw tonight here, is something real. I would say it’s in the middle. We played great defense in the first two periods. They scored just 14 and 10 points in that time, and that enabled us to overcome the problems we found in offense, when we were not very accurate. Our attitude was radically different tonight. There is no magic here, we changed a couple of things in our game; we cannot make deep changes at this point. But we played with a different level of energy. I think this young team got rid of that weight some players had in terms of respect to CSKA. The team knows now that we’re able to play at their level and beat them. The next game won’t be like this one, but it won’t be like the two we played in Moscow either. They will recover, they are going to play better, rebound better, will play at a different level for sure. I didn’t like the last quarter, as we allowed 33 points from their side. We didn’t play at the same intensity level we did in the previous three quarters."
MESSINA, ETTORE
CSKA Moscow
"First thing I must do is to sincerely congratulate Caja Labora for their great game tonight. I can’t find another expression to define what happened; they kicked our asses. You cannot come to Vitoria thinking that it’s going to be easy, even with a 2-0 advantage. You can imagine that the opponent will take a step ahead in terms of aggressiveness, pride, intensity, but today it was not only that. They just played better basketball than we did. It wasn’t a surprise for me. I’m older than my players, and I remember when I came here in 2001, with a team that counted on players like Ginobili, Jaric, Andersen, etc. We won the first game by 20. The next one we were destroyed. The only thing that prevents me from trying to jump from the window of the upper floor of the hotel is to think that with that team we committed the same mistake this team committed today. I don’t want to think too much about it right now. It’s obvious I’m not happy at all, and that I would set a practice right now if I could, but we must keep calm. There is a fourth game ahead of us."

Players

NOCIONI, ANDRES
Laboral Kutxa Vitoria
"We played very well tonight. I think that we took the court more aggressive, tougher, and that made the difference. I don’t know if such a large win is fair, but the game went like this and that’s all. This is a long journey, now we have another game on Friday and it will be a very tough contest, more balanced. We will face a better, more consistent, CSKA for sure. It will take a lot more from us. It will depend on us that we play at the same level than we did today in order to be able to beat them again. We must avoid too much excitement at this point. We are not an excellent team, like it could look like tonight, neither are we a bad team like we looked like in Moscow. We are in an intermediate level. We won one at home and that’s all. Now we must put all our effort in the next one. We realized that we could beat them, we still have maximum respect for them, as they are a great team, with great players and great coach, but we now believe that we can force Game 5 and go back to Moscow. "
SAN EMETERIO, FERNANDO
Laboral Kutxa Vitoria
"We played a very good game tonight. We were aggressive, we played good defense, we were able run the court and play in transition. We enjoyed the game, and I think the fans did too, but that’s all. Now we must to rest, and start thinking of the next one. The fourth will be a very difficult game, more than this. When a team is ahead 2-0, winning games by a big difference, sometimes it faces the next one more relaxed. This was only one game; you need to get three wins to prevail."
MICOV, VLADIMIR
CSKA Moscow
"For sure we didn’t expect such a big change in Caja Laboral, especially after the first two games, when we totally dominated the court. But today we played without energy. In the first half we just hit one three-point shot, while they scored all the open shots they had. We allowed offensive rebounds, fast breaks, open shots. We were totally disconnected on the court. In the second half we tried, but there was no chance and we just played as good as a team as we could. We have now a day before the fourth game and it’s time to review our mistakes and to try to fix the things we did bad today. I don’t think we need to make big changes in our basketball, if you look at the three games, there haven’t been big changes. We didn’t have a good approach after being 2-0, as they had nothing to lose, probably without pressure. As I said we lacked energy. We cannot allow ourselves to play a game like this."
WEEMS, SONNY
CSKA Moscow
"We didn’t expect something like this tonight. Not at all. We didn’t play our best defense, we didn’t play our best basketball, and when something like that happens, you get a result like this. We must improve our defense and recover the level we were at in the first two games. We need to rebound better. We still have next game and we just must focus on playing basketball."