BC Khimki lost to Fenerbahce Istanbul in Turkish Airline Euroleague week 10 clash — 68-70 (26-24, 13-15, 10-11, 19-20) with the decisive shot by Bogdan Bogdanovic. Despite this loss our team has already qualified to the Top 16. The next game our team will play in Minsk on Sunday, December 20, 2015 vs. Tsmoki-Minsk (Belorussia). The beginning is at 14.45 msk.
BC Khimki: Rice (19 + 3 assists), Shved (16 + 2 assists), Dragic (13 + 6 rebounds), Todorovic (7 + 7 rebounds), Honeycutt (6 + 2 rebounds), Augustine (4 + 8 rebounds + 2 steals + 2 assists), Koponen (3 + 2 rebounds + 2 assists), Monya, Vyaltsev, Ilnitsky.
Post-game quotes
Zeljko Obradovic, Fenerbahce Istanbul head coach:
“Before the last games in this part of the Euroleague, it was obvious that our group had been the most difficult one in the competition. Only in our group we didn’t know two teams who would qualify to the Top 16. The good thing is that both teams, Fenerbahce and Khimki, are already in the Top 16 and it was a good opportunity to play a good game. The best thing was that both teams wanted to win the game. Khimki opened an excellent game as Tyrese Rice was incredible with 15 points in the first quarter. He had a lot of one-on-one situations and our main problem in defense was to stop the one-on-one game. It was very interesting game with a lot of fight, but not so much quality. I believe that Khimki is an absolutely different team with Paul Davis and without him. I talked with him before the game and he expects to be ready for the Top 16. We won the game only by 2 points and it’s easy to recognize that in the end of the game it was also a possibility for Khimki to win. The difference was not so much. I want to congratulate my players because in a very tough group almost two weeks ago we passed to the Top 16 to be first in it. The spirit of the team was excellent even though we didn’t play well. We fought a lot and because of this we won the game. Now we have to wait and see our group in the Top 16 but we must prepare ourselves to play a little bit better than we played until now. Good luck to Khimki in the future".
Bobby Dixon, Fenerbahce Istanbul guard:
"We knew that the game would be tough. Khimki is a good team that plays at a high pace and scores a lot of points. We played our basketball and at the end came out with a 2-point victory. The key was defense tonight".
Rimas Kurtinaitis, BC Khimki head coach:
"First I want to congratulate the Fenerbahce team on a good game. Coach Obradovic did a great job. The game was tough and nice for the spectators and for us. It’s sorry that we lost in the end of the game. We made a couple of mistakes, we didn’t box-out and made the last turnover. These details were the most important ones in the game. But we were as strong as Fenerbahce and it was like the first game in Istanbul where we lost in the last seconds. I don’t know; maybe the reason is that we don’t have enough experience to win Euroleague games. So we’ll try to do it. I’m happy that we've passed into the next round of the competition and we’ll see what’s going on".
James Augustine, BC Khimki forward:
"We came up short and everybody played well tonight. In the end we let them go to take the lead. We were playing well as Shved and Rice were great. We rebounded and played defense, but let them go in the end. In the last possession we dropped the play and they did well".