Euroleague Basketball
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball

After trailing for the majority of the game, CSKA Moscow finally stepped up late to overcome their cross-town rivals Khimki in game one of the EuroLeague playoff tie.

CSKA Moscow coach Dimitris Itoudis praised his team’s fight as they rose to the occasion in order to claim a 98-95 win to give them a 1-0 lead in the series.

“I feel good because we took the first win, so congratulations to the players,” said Itoudis.

“That was a good fight in the end. As you can see, we won the last three quarters. We had a very bad start. With all due respect to all our opponents, and of course to Khimki, which is a great and talented team, we gave up a lot of open looks and they scored a lot of threes – 14 three-pointers on the road. It’s a big number.

“Despite that, we talked a lot in the locker room and also in the timeouts and the players deserve all the congratulations because they realized they have to rise to the moment, we need to rise to the occasion, and to take it from there and face obstacles that we face during the season and in certain games like what happened, we had to play unfortunately without Nando, without Kyle. It’s not an excuse. It’s the obstacles you face during the game and during the season. So congratulations to my players.”