Avtodor head coach Darko RUSSO explained the reasons for the absence of five basketball players and commented on the 76-103 road loss against CSKA Moscow:
“First of all, I would like to apologize to CSKA for the fact that we could not put up the strongest squad for this match. The past week has been terrible for us. Three Americans could not play today due to health problems - it was extremely risky to use them in this meeting. Mikhailovsky twisted his ankle at an evening workout, and on Monday Petenev injured his hand.
I don’t want somebody to think that I was calculating something or making decision to rest players. No! All my life I am giving full energy in every game trying to win. It was terrible situation and I am very sad. The game could be more interesting if we had a full roster. Still I am satisfied with the way we fought for all 40 minutes. We gave our maximum, but CSKA is one of the best teams in Europe. With 7 players we couldn’t do better against them."