Final Four
- April 30, 2006
- SAZKA ARENA
Local time: 8:30 PM
TV
CET: 8:30 PM
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Head Coaches
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MESSINA, ETTORE
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CSKA Moscow head coach
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"Good afternoon. We are very happy to be in the Final, as you probably imagine. It will be very difficult because we will be playing the two-time defending champions, Maccabi, and their coach in an all-yellow arena. We have been struggling and surviving all year long, and we will try to prepare in the best posible way for the game. Before coming here to Prague, I had two little things in mind related to statistics, even though I am not very fond of statistics. One is that everytime I made the Final Four, my team reached the Final, and fortunately that stat is still valid thanks to my players and their mental strength. The other thing I keep it for me now but I hope we can talk about it tomorrow. Thank you. We're thankful for our fans that came here. If the Maccabi fans weren't so confident and didn't buy so many tickets earlier, we would have had more fans here. Living abroad and coaching a new team has been interesting. We're going into the lion's mouth. We know that and we know that no one will be betting on us. From final to final you realize that coaches have a little role. It's about the players and their ability to deal with the pressure. The coach still has an important role, making substitutions and so on, but it's about the players."
"Final after final, you probably understand that tactics have a very, very limited role. These games are based on character, personality and the ability to play simple under pressure. If you as a coach manage to not complicate the game for your players, you already help them a lot. This is not to put the responsibility all on the shoulders of the players. The coach has timeouts, substitutions and so on to consider. But many times we have a tendency to think that tactics overcome some situations, but year after year I see that in a different way."
(Ettore Messina on his 12-0 lifetime record against Maccabi:) "All of us in life, we have little things that help us be confident and strong in difficult moments. Somebody likes to wear the same suit or the same tie to every game, or relies on his faith in god. As I see it, this is one of those little things that help us feel better going into difficult moments."
(Ettore Messina on living and coaching in Russia:) "I can say that living in a different country for the first time and coaching this team for the first time has been very, very interesting. The most interesting part has been the mutual cooperatioin between people of different countries, different languages, different styles and different experiences. It has been amazing for me to see us all reach a level of cohesion, which is not only special basketball-wise but in terms of human relations, and I think that supported us in all the difficult moments we had."
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GERSHON, PINI
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Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv head coach
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"Good morning to everyone. It’s great to be in the Final again with Maccabi. We expect a tough game tomorrow against a good team with an experienced coach. Both teams made a long way to the Final. I know it will be a 40-minute game and it’s going to be tough. It’s not easy to defend the championship, but I expect my players in the team to handle the pressure, which is on us this time. I hope that they do so by at least playing like yesterday. I said yesterday that to win the title you have to reach the Final first, so here we are. We know the expectations of our fans, not everyone has the money to come here. Our fans deserve a third cup. I'm sure that most players don't play better under pressure. I help my players stick to the basics in these games. I say 'let them think less and play better.' This will help them. Coaches get the money, sometimes big money, to be the ones that get the blame after defeats. I'm a small part of the Maccabi success. Maccabi has been champion for 40 years in Israel and we're proud to be a part of this. I've said in the past that this club makes players better and I'll tell you now that it makes coaches better too. Without my assistants, staff and Anthony Parker, I wouldn't be sitting here in my fifth final. Maybe the last few years we were the best offensive team. This year we were first or second in defensive [field goal] percentage. Maybe Ettore doesn't believe in statistics, we'll see what happens tomorrow."
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Players
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SMODIS, MATJAZ
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CSKA Moscow forward
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"Good afternoon everyone. First of all I’d like to thank the Maccabi team for the congratulations. I know it’s been kind of tough for CSKA because the last three Final Fours didn’t go as well as this one so far. As far as tomorrow’s game I know everybody will come prepared to play basketball. Maccabi will have the experience and suport of the fans on their side. But we will have the desire to be a champ on ours, so I think it’s going to be a very tough game. A very interesting matchup because Maccabi is a little more offensive-minded while we focus more on defense. We’ll see what happens. The final against Maccabi with Fortutido in Tel Aviv, no one can forget. I'll use that as a positive experience to help prepare for tomorrow because it'll be similar in the number of Maccabi fans here."
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BURSTEIN, TAL
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Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv guard
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"Good afternoon everybody. First of all I’d like to congratulate CSKA for the win yesterday. We watched the game, the first half at least, and we know they are a very tough teams. They have a lot of good players and of course a great coach. We expect a tough game tomorrow and like coach Gershon said, we hope to play at least as good as yesterday because that way we know we may win. We're trying to win our third title in a row to reward our fans, we're not thinking about whether our coach will be retiring."
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History will be made on Sunday night when Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv faces CSKA Moscow in the Euroleague final in the spectacular Sazka Arena in Prague. Not only the winner will make it to the European basketball history books, it will also have a special page on it. If Maccabi wins the title on Sunday, it will join ASK Riga and Jugoplastika Split as the only teams to win three consecutive Euroleague titles. Maccabi coach Pini Gershon also has the chance to do the same, something than only the late Aleksandar Gomelsky has accomplished. Meanwhile, CSKA Moscow now has the chance to win its first Euroleague title since 1971, when once again the legendary Gomelsky coached the team to a 69-53 win against Ignis Varese behind 24 points from Sergei Belov. CSKA made it to its last Euroleague final in 1973, as even when the team has reached the Final Four six times since 1996, this is its first shot for the title in 33 years. Above all, it will be a showdown of styles. In few Euroleague finals have been more obvious that the team which controls the tempo and take the game to its territory will have bigger chances to win. CSKA is arguably the best defensive team in the competition, which a team-oriented concept in which nobody is more important than any other and everyone tries to help in every switch or in each pick-and-roll situation. Meanwhile, Maccabi has broken offensive records with its run-and-gun style which coach Pini Gershon, a fun-to-wacth basketball guru and one of the most charismatic characters in European basketball, installed since he arrived in the team. Coach Ettore Messina has taken three different teams to the Euroleague final - Virtus, Benetton and now CSKA - and his team will not focus on just one player, even when Maccabi features superstar Anthony Parker, who had all its 19 points in the pivotal first half of his team's semifinal against Tau Ceramica. Parker will have to face David Vanterpool, one of the best defensive players in the competition who has faced him at least twice each previous season since 2003. Vanterpool will try to put Parker in foul trouble in the other end, as he will play the point guard position with teammate J.R. Holden at the off-guard spot. Messina got the most out of Holden, who had 19 points against Winterthur FCB in the semifinal and is ready to face a top defensive player like Will Solomon - at least in the beginning of the game. Gershon will try to create mismatches by rotating Solomon, Parker, Derrick Sharp and Tal Burstein at all three perimeter spots. One of his main concerns will be slowing Theodoros Papaloukas, who lifted CSKA in the semifinals, scoring 8 points in a game-breaking 0-13 run which put his team ahead for good. His athleticism, speed and leadership will be a key factor in this game. Solomon already shutted down All-Euroleague nominee Pablo Prigioni and is ready to do the same with Papaloukas. Sharp is ready to give Maccabi a boost off the bench, too, as his perfomance improves in big games like this. One of the X-factors of the game could be Trajan Langdon, who had 12 points against Barcelona and will try to show his shooting skills against Tal Burstein, another man made for title games in which he always steps up. The battle in the paint will be interesting, as both Nikola Vujcic and Maceo Baston showed they are in top form right now. Baston shocked everyone with his outside shooting and finished the game with 20 points, while Vujcic had an all-around game of 16 points, 2 triples, 8 rebounds and 7 assists. Meanwhile, CSKA count on Matjaz Smodis, a power forward with great shooting range, as well as with Aleksey Savrasenko and Tomas Van den Spiegel, two pure centers ready to set screens for everyone and who only score around the basket. Both can have troubles with Vujcic, who will try to take out his defender to create more space for everyone. Smodis will try to do so for CSKA, as he his one-on-one skills are between the very best in Europe, even when Baston already showed his defensive skills by having a career-best 6 blocks against Tau. Jamie Arnold could also damage CSKA in the low post, especialy if Vujcic is on court, but CSKA uses two-on-one traps often and knows how to solve these kind of situations. Maccabi, as usual, will have a majority of fans backing them in Sazka Arena and that could be a factor, but the main key will be the game tempo. Maccabi is 2-4 when being held under 80 points and 15-3 when scoring 80 or more. Meanwhile, if Maccabi is allowed to play on its usual, flashy way, with short possessions and superb ball circulation, the team will fly back to Tel Aviv with a historical third consecutive Euroleague trophy. European basketball cannot get better than this, so don't miss the chance to miss the Euroleague title game!
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Saturday, April 29, 2006
Euroleague.net
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Stats Comparisions: Teams and players
| 77.5 |
Pts. |
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LANGDON, TRAJAN |
12.9 |
Pts. |
15.0 |
PARKER, ANTHONY |
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Pts. |
84.6 |
| 53.67 % |
2FG% |
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PAPALOUKAS, THEODOROS |
65.00 % |
2FG% |
65.00 % |
BASTON, MACEO |
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2FG% |
55.11 % |
| 34.86 % |
3FG% |
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PANOV, SERGEY |
43.18 % |
3FG% |
66.67 % |
BASTON, MACEO |
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3FG% |
38.54 % |
| 32.8 |
Rebounds |
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SMODIS, MATJAZ |
5.4 |
Rebounds |
7.0 |
PARKER, ANTHONY |
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Rebounds |
34.4 |
| 14.0 |
Assist. |
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PAPALOUKAS, THEODOROS |
3.9 |
Assist. |
4.0 |
VUJCIC, NIKOLA |
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Assist. |
15.5 |
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