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CSKA MOSCOW TEAM STATS OLYMPIACOS TEAM STATS HEAD TO HEAD MATCHUPS HISTORIC MATCHUPS

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CSKA Moscow 1-1 Olympiacos
CSKA Moscow targets its record sixth consecutive trip to the Final Four, but must get through a resurgent Olympiacos Piraeus first in an intriguing Quarterfinal Playoffs duel. The Reds turned their season around under new head coach Panagiotis Giannakis, winning four straight games to close the Top 16 to finish in second place in Group F. Reigning Euroleague MVP Theodoros Papaloukas will again be at center stage for the 2006 champs, since he began his Euroleague career with Olympiacos in 2001. The Reds counter with a pair of superscorers in Lynn Greer and Arvydas Macijauskas, recently returned from injury. The two teams have already met twice this season in Group A with each team winning at home. CSKA, which has the home-court advantage for the best-of three series, boasts a 27-game home-court winning streak dating back to January 2006 when it lost to another Greek team, Panathinaikos.

Nikos Zisis CSKA Moscow Guard

Arvydas Macijauskas Olympiacos Forward

"It's hard to imagine much more experience being packed into a 24-year-old than CSKA Moscow point guard Nikos Zisis has already collected. Zisis has been a European national champ, Olympics silver medalist and club champion in two countries. When he joined CSKA last summer, there was no doubt about what trophy Zisis wants to lift next - the Euroleague. As one of only five CSKA players to see action in all 20 games so far, Zisis heads into the playoffs against a familar foe, Olympiacos, whose new coach is his own on the Greek national team. Zisis shared his thoughts about the matchup with Euroleague.net

"It's been a nice season until now. We qualified for the quarterfinals. Now the important things start. Our goal is to go to the Final Four and do what CSKA did two years ago...I think it was a very tough Top 16. We struggled in the very first game, but managed to take a win on the last-second shot by Trajan Langdon, which turned out to be very important. We had started February badly, also losing in the Russian Cup final, but after that we started playing much better basketball. We saw that with our wins against Barcelona at home and Unicaja at home, and then in Rome against Lottomatica. We played well and deserved first place. The last loss to Barcelona wasn't important in the standings, because we were first anyway. If you take out the first and last games, we made convincing performances and played good enough basketball to deserve our spot."



"The Euroleague is different than anything else, domestic leagues, for instance. Not only are the best teams there, but the Top 16 is completely different from the first phase. It's all about being in good shape physically and psychologically. Three big teams who were top seeds before the Top 16 - Panathinaikos, Real Madrid and Lietuvos Rytas - are out now, whether because of injuries, or a key loss or a psychological letdown. All that says that in the Euroleague, you never know. Panathinaikos and Real Madrid played finals in the last week and didn't manage to win them. We got lucky in our first game with an unbelievable comeback and Trajan's three, an unbelievably tough shot. But after that we convinced ourselves, not just by winning but by the way we played, that we can be a good team."

"To tell the truth - because I am Greek, so I know - Olympiacos is a completely different team now. We know their players, for sure. But the coach changed, the system changed. The Olympiacos we played against in Athens and Moscow played 40 minutes of zone defense both games. That's not going to happen now. Their new coach is defensive-minded and for sure these games will be more physical. This coach is not like Coach Gershon, who liked a high tempo. That won't happen even in their home games now. The pace will be more defensive, for sure."

"First of all, when a coach come in February to a team, he's not able to change a lot because he can't choose the players on the roster. He can't change so much in so little time, with the games always coming every three or four days. A coach is not a magician. But I think that in this case, for sure, Coach Giannakis has changed the psychology of the players. He managed to bring the Greeks back into the rotation, which was smaller under Coach Gershon. This brings to the team a different psychology, that anyone can help, whether it's playing three minutes or 30 minutes. That's good for the spirit of a team. Everyone plays together. For sure, their defense is much better, forcing turnovers and being more aggressive than before. And on offense, of course, they have players with value and personality who on any given night can take the team on their shoulders and make big plays."

"Macijauskas was out a long time, came back a couple games ago and seems to be trying to get back to normal. For sure, it will be tough for him, but with Macijauskas on the roster, Olympiacos is much more dangerous. We all know what a great scorer he is. With him, Olympiacos has a great perimeter team, and is also good close to the baskets, with great rebounders and big bodies who won't let us make easy baskets. It's going to be a tough series for sure, and for fans, fun to watch. It may not be decided with 90-point games, but it will be great, great basketball."

Olympiacos and its playoff opponent, CSKA Moscow, played twice in the regular season and split home victories. The big difference now is that Olypiacos will have two key people whom they didn't have in those previous games: head coach Panagiotis Giannakis and shooting star Arvydas Macijauskas. Although he was injured off and on for months, Macijauskas had started the season as the Euroleague's top-ranked player through 10 games. He returns for the playoffs still trying to regain game shape under a new coach with a new system, but he was glad to talk about the upcoming series with Euroleague.net.

"I am recovered from the injuries finally, and feeling better and better every day. But I still need this time before the playoffs to get back into playing shape and get my timing and do it without taking away from the team. The team has been playing without me a long time, and playing well, so all I want to do is add to what they have already been doing. We want to be in the Final Four and CSKA wants to be there, too, so we know that nothing will come easy, but we are preparing to be ready."



"I only started being able to play a couple of weeks ago, so for me it is not easy yet. While I was out, of course, we had a coaching change, and I had only played for the coach who left. Now with Coach Giannakis, it's up to me to learn the new system, and the truth is that we have changed a lot the way we play. First, in practice, I want to contribute and help the guys get better, and then be able to do the same even if I go on the court for a few minutes in a game. The chemistry is good with our new coach and I want to help with that chemistry."

"I had one injury, my back, and then when I was playing again for a couple of days, got injured again. Nothing was very big, but still the injuries took me out of basketball for a couple months, which was not good for me and not good for the team. But fortunately, we have a lot of good players and a good team. Everyone is happy, and it's not important if one player here or there cannot play, because everyone feels responsibility to help the team."

"Defense has definitely become the most important part of the game for us now. That is what we concentrate on, and that helped the team win. The mood of the team was good, and even though we lost the Greek Cup final that we wanted to win, and came close, we will have to forget about that. The mood will still be good going into the playoffs because we want to get ready for CSKA and we don't want anything to interfere with us trying to take the extra step to the Final Four."

"At home, we are a very strong team with our fans behind us. The fans give us an advantage against anyone. That's how we beat a team like Real Madrid, which was hoping to be at the Final Four in their city and was built to make it there. This was more than an accident. We have a lot of faith playing at home, and that's what makes the first game against CSKA the most important. If we can make something happen in Moscow, we know that we can beat big teams on our own court."

"CSKA, of course, is full of good players and they have one of the best coaches anywhere, someone who does a good job no matter where he goes. What's most important about CSKA is they know how to play team basketball. That makes a team much more difficult to stop. When a team depends on one or two guys, they can be stopped. This is what's so good about CSKA: it's a great team that plays like a team."