Translated material
One Way
The winner of the ULEB Cup is still far from the Euroleague champion
The central match of the first round of the men's super league tournament with the participation of two capital clubs became a kind of meeting for the European Super Cup. After all, in this game the strongest team of the continent, the winner of the Euroleague CSKA and the owner of the ULEB Cup Dynamo, were sorting things out. The development of events on the home court of the “red-blues” once again proved what a gulf in the strength of the rival teams lies between the two continental tournaments. The army team, having not started the match very well, already had an 18-point advantage by the big break, mercilessly destroying the intrigue of the further confrontation. As a result, 75:56 in favor of the Euroleague champion.Serbian Dynamo coach Dusan Ivkovic, after his three-year contract with CSKA expired in 2005, until yesterday took the blue and white team twice against his former club, and in both cases his new team suffered defeats. It was assumed that the army team and Dynamo were supposed to meet in the super final of the Russian championship, but the country's senior team was eliminated from the playoffs after the first round, ultimately settling for fifth place.
On Sunday, Ivkovic lost his duel again to the Italian Ettore Messina. A conversation about coaching rivalry is quite appropriate, because rivals, who are not constrained by financial resources, have approximately the same opportunities in selection and, therefore, relatively equal performers. However, it is noticeable that the team game of the army team was built by Messina much more fundamentally. If CSKA has bad periods, they last only a few minutes, and the Italian coach knows how to quickly get his players out of a temporary crisis.
The army team scored their first two points from the game only in the fifth minute of the first period. However, the “blue and white” did not have time to run far. The starting period ended in a draw, and in the second period the opponents gave the “red-blues” complete freedom of action in attack. In attack, Dynamo demonstrated, if not complete helplessness, then at least an inability to play flexibly and outwit the army team’s defense. Just four points from play in ten minutes is a disgusting indicator for a Super League club that is vying for championship medals.
The audience was interested in how ex-army player Sergei Monya, who joined Dynamo from the NBA, would perform in the game against his former club. Monya didn’t remember anything about yesterday. It seems that he does not at all justify the role in the team that was originally assigned to him. Sergei entered the court from the bench and, before he went to rest due to too many personal comments, spent almost half of the playing time of the match, hitting the CSKA hoop only once.
The “blue and white” are not yet ready to compete with the best team in the country and the Old World. Some spectacular episodes in the Dynamo game alternate with outright negligence. Just look at the episode at the end of the second quarter, when Theodoras Papaloukas won the fight for the ball on the arc and without resistance, simultaneously with the siren he sent it into the visitors’ ring, earning three points at once. None of the army players in this match needed to shine with high individual performance. The team did an excellent job defensively, and CSKA's top scorer with a modest 14 points was the same Papaloukas, one of four contenders for the title of best player of 2006 according to the continental branch of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA-Europe).
Dynamo center Lazar Popandopulo, who recently recovered from injury, failed this game - five points and just a couple of rebounds. On the “second floor”, CSKA’s superiority turned out to be enormous - 44 collected rebounds of the ball from the backboard versus 25 for the defeated team. The final gap in the score could have been noticeably larger if the army team had shot free throws better. Still, 11 misses out of 33 attempts is too much. Papaloukas and Andersen were especially guilty of this element of the game. Although when motivation is lost by the beginning of the second half of the match, it is difficult to expect full concentration from the basketball players of the winning team.
The day before, Khimki, located near Moscow, set a season record, defeating CSK VVS-Samara with a difference of 49 points - 99:50. “Ural-Great” lost to UNICS in Perm – 74:92, the Rostov “railroad workers” upset their Novosibirsk teammates – 100:72. UNICS is in the lead in the championship, winning all eight matches. CSKA with one defeat from Kazan is in second place, the capital's Dynamo team after the second failure remained in third position.