BC Khimki — AX Armani Exchange Olimpia Milan — 77-86 (20-30, 19-19, 23-12, 15-25)

BC Khimki: Shved (24 + 6 assists + 2 steals), Anderson (14 + 4 rebounds), Jenkins (11 + 3 rebounds + 2 steals), Gill (9 + 4 rebounds), Thomas (6 + 4 rebounds + 3 assists + 2 steals), Markovic (5 + 6 rebounds + 6 assists + 2 steals), Todorovic (4 + 4 rebounds), Robinson (2), Vyaltsev (2), Monya.

POST-GAME

Georgios Bartzokas, BC Khimki head coach:

“I cannot say that what happened today was unexpected. We expected Milan to play without any pressure. They have a lot of offensive talent and if you allow them to play at their rhythm, they can beat you. They can beat any team in Europe if they play this kind of basketball that they played tonight. From our side, we need to approach the game in a completely different way, thinking about, first of all, defense, and playing without pressure because right now, it is so obvious that the team, in must-win games, we are struggling because of our pressure. It is obvious if you think that we missed more than 10 layups under the basket, sometimes without any pressure. At the same time, we made silly fouls when they had the bonus, without any danger to score baskets. In these games, if you miss a lot of layups, you don't foul whenever you must foul and allow the other team, especially players like Goudelock and Jerrells, to shoot so many open shots, you don't deserve to win. Right now, this is a process — we have five games until the end and must try to get as many wins as we can to see if finally we can qualify to the playoffs. As I always say, this is the EuroLeague, and the EuroLeague had great teams and great players. Whenever you are not ready to play the game or have problems, like we had today, missing Honeycutt, Zubkov and Sokolov, [you lose]. Robinson is getting back and now our chemistry looks broken, so it is my responsibility right now to go until the end with players who can execute our plan. It is important not to change the approach, but to go game by game, one game at a time, and finally to see what we do. Congratulations to Milan”.

Charles Jenkins, BC Khimki guard:

“At this point every game in the EuroLeague is important for us. We didn’t start well fighting the entire game. Milano is really talented; they let their guys keep going and it was tough to play for us. Curtis Jerrells and Andrew Goudelock are experienced players who scored. We let this one get away. We have five more games to try to get the right position before the playoffs”.