CBA-Euroleague Challenge quotes: Team China 77-83 CSKA
CSKA Moscow head coach Ettore Messina:

"We are very happy to be part of this event organized by the CBA and Euroleague Basketball. After our travelling problems yesterday, we were happy to be able to show the Chinese fans today what CSKA is about and we hope that they enjoyed seeing the way we play. Today was a good game for both teams, China in its preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games and CSKA in preparation for our new season. We are happy with the win and wish the best of luck to China in the Olympics next summer. Part of our strategy today is we wanted to make Yao defend the power forward position outside and second, we had some foul trouble in the game, so we had to have both Smodis and Goree play a little more minutes than they were ready to because of their physical condition. Also, we were without Ramunas Siskauskas, who had an injury, so it was tough to miss him."

CSKA Moscow guard Zakhar Pashutin:

"It was a very hard game, with both teams playing good defense and offense. Also it was close game, and we did something we needed to do, show we wanted to win despite the circumstances of China's good defense."

CSKA Moscow guard Theo Papaloukas:

"It was a good game for us, a good win. These were the first two games we played together now at the beginning of the seasaon, because most of our players were in the European championships. We are back together, playing together and I think for us this was good preparation. Now, we go to siberia and start the Russian championship, which is most important for us right now."

Team China head coach Jonas Kazlauskas:

"I think that today's game was another good one, again, like yesterday. The difference between the two days for us is that we lost this one. In the last minutes, there was not enough discipline on our side. We haven't played still enough games at this level, so we didn't have enough experience in the last part of the game. Everything came down to the last minutes, and we weren't able to finish it as well as we played before. Generally I am happy with how we played and generally we finished this part of our preparation really good."
Monday, October 01, 2007
Euroleague.net
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