“I said befote and even in the press conference, that I had a good feeling about this Final Tour.I have the good experience I got in the Summer in Belgrado. I think we placed clever if you don’t count the first 5 minutes. Even when 11 points down, we know what we were doing. But we made Barcelona struggle with our defense. We knew that if the game was to be decided in the last quarter, we World have the biggest chance to win. We are mentally stronger than almost all the teams in the Euroleague. Right now it’s time to enjoy the win and concentrate for the Final. We have not done anything yet, we’re only half done. We have to go all the way to be happy.”

"It's a great thing, especially breaking the spell. I think everyone is relaxed now. We were under pressure because of that fact, and I think that's why we started out playing bad in the first half. But then we started picking up our defense, making them take tough shots, and I think basically it was defense that brought us to the final. I think everyone is kind of proud, and we can celebrate tonight, but tomorrow is another day and we have to get ready for the final on Sunday."

"We knew we were not playing our best game, especially on defense. We know that if our defense is good, our offense will come, but if we ain't got no defense, we have a tough time scoring on offense. We knew that if we somehow hanged in there, we could turn this thing around. That's exactly what happened. We got a few stops, forced them to take tough shots, rebounded well and got a few fastbreaks, and that kind of broke the game."

"When they played the small lineup we had a little advantage in size with me inside. That was the objective, to throw the ball inside and look for shots outside or play one-on-one. We also suffered a lot their pick-and-roll from the very beginning. We did a great job at the end, and that's what counts."

"Maccabi is a good team, a great team, and they showed it in the first game. But I think we have our chances. If we manage to play defense for 40 minutes, and manage to contain their offense, I think we have a chance. Especially for me it's a little bit more important, since I still hold the minus-44 record from the last time I faced them in the 2004 final. At least I want to make a little better impression this time."

"It's my second time in the Euroleague finals, but the first time I lost to Barcelona, and tonight I paid them back. I think we didn't start well because there was some pressure in the begining, since CSKA lost three semifinals in a row, but we've found the way to make it happen. We played much more intense on defense, and that's what made the difference. Now we are facing Maccabi, and we'll have to try to do the same thing if we want to win. We just saw the last two minutes of the first semifinals, but we know that we'll have to play great defense in the finals."

“It’s gonna be my second Euroleague Final, it’s kind of emocional but at the same time I’m already thinking about Sunday. So we didn’t celebrate toomuch. We have to think about Maccabi. It’s a great feeling to beat a team like Barcelona. We hung in there, fought and won the game. The last Final I played, against Maccabi, we lost by 44. I just don’t want to do better, I want to be up there.”

“Well we stepped up and did our thing! We were down in the second quarter but what happened was this: Theo Papaloukas, he’s my man. He made it happen, he sparked the team one more time and we went from there. I believe our level of determination made the difference. Barcelona made a run but they saw us coming back each and everytime, and at some point we just took over the game. It's true Holden hit great shots, but it could have been anyone else on the team. It was big fun to play against Bootsy, like in the old times. I was expecting his play in the closing minutes and managed to stop him. Now we are going to the finals, and we'll have to do the exact same thing to win the title. It's the first finals for me, and every finals is great. We'll try to do our best against Maccabi now.”