CSKA Moscow Slump to First Euroleague Defeat

CSKA Moscow’s 13-game winning run in the Euroleague has come to an end with a 68-64 defeat to Turkish team Galatasaray.
The Moscow team still leads its Top 16 group despite the defeat, with three wins and one loss, followed by Greek team Olympiakos and Galatasaray, who each have a 2-2 record. Turkish team Anadolu Efes are last with one win in four.
CSKA coach Jonas Kazlauskas said Friday that the team hadn’t played badly, blaming the result on Galatasaray’s greater will to win.
"I can't say we played badly, but the key point is that Galatasaray wanted to win more than we did,” the Euroleague website quoted Kazlauskas as saying. “And that brought them the win.”
“There is nobody to blame. Everyone, the whole team lost,” CSKA’s Russian international center Sasha Kaun told RIA Novosti. “We’ll learn from our mistakes and continue to fight to enter the play-offs”.
“The Turkish fans supported their team well and noisily. It’s possible that influenced the result in some way,” Kaun said.
For Galatasaray, the game was revenge for an 85-70 defeat in Moscow on February 2. CSKA’s next Euroleague match will be against Olympiakos on February 22 in Moscow.
57-year-old Lithuanian coach Kazlauskas took the helm at CSKA in 2011. He won the bronze medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 coaching Lithuania and a European championship bronze in 2009 with Greece.