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CSKA lost team captain Khryapa for quite some time

Barcelona need to focus on defense and stopping Teodosic and De Colo. They have defense specialists for that who will give their team a great chance of stunning the Russians, if successful in those defense tasks

Barcelona struggled more than expected on Sunday in the Unicaja game. Joan Plaza surprised them with a 2-3 zone at the start. Barcelona struggled against that and found themselves 7 points short. However, things have fallen into place in the second half when Arroyo hit a total of 5 three pointers, while Ribas added three to break Unicaja's zone.

- It doesn't happen that often that someone plays the zone and we needed time to get used to that. Everything went as planned later on. It's important that we recorded two new points - coach Pascual said. 

The win over Unicaja is especially important for him since there was a lot of talk about Plaza replacing him at Barcelona lately. But, that is not going to happen, at least not for now. 

Ante Tomic did a little better against Unicaja. He didn't hit points again (1-for-6 from the floor, 6 points) but he was active in other segments of the game to end up recording 11 rebounds and 6 assists. Barcelona need Tomic to do that again since he can give them dominance in the paint and that is the only way to beat CSKA. 

Barca had a great chance in the first match in Moscow because the Russians were without De Colo and Khryapa. But, Barcelona didn't do well in defense, while CSKA hit some crazy shots from all parts of the floor to win 93-82. CSKA had two-point shooting of 60 percent and three point shooting of 50 percent, which is going to be very tough to repeat in Barcelona.

CSKA hit over 86 points in 14 out of the last 15 away games and interestingly, recorded the only convincing defeat to Laboral, who limited them to only 71 points in Spain. Barcelona have it in them and that is at the same time, the only way to beat CSKA. The more productive the game, the less chance they will stand. 

The key to defense are positions 1 and 2, of course, where CSKA dominate against De Colo and Teodosic. Barca's Satoransky and Oleson can stop that and more importantly, they have Dorsey at position five. He's a great blocker and good at defending pick game. If the defense does well, and Barcelona's defense has potential for it, the Catalans will have a very good chance.

The team from Moscow are set to play their third staright away game. They beat Real and Kazan in the previous two and have basically already secured a spot in QFs on a 7-2 record. However, Itoudis wants the top spot and home court advantage in quarterfinal series, as well as avoiding Fener later on. But, the main goal for now is securing the QFs in this extremely tough group. 

- Barca are a complete team that sits top table in ACB league and is doing well at the moment. This is an important game for both teams, for different reasons. We expect a tough fight and a very tough game - coach Itoudis said.

He lost Viktor Khryapa in Kazan, just when he found form and became an important player. However, a fracture of a bone in his left arm will keep his sidelined for a while. Since Nichols has been out for a while now, only Voroncevic is left for Itoudis at 4. The matchup with Doellman will be very tough for him. In the first head-to-head, which CSKA won 93-82, Voroncevic hit 16 points, while Doellman hit 14. Khyarpa didn't play back then and neither has De Colo but CSKA still hit 16 out of 30 shots from the three point line and a total of 54 points by half time. 

CSKA are a machine this season but they have limitations as well. In the fast, casual game they played against Real, there isn't many teams capable of beating them. The same goes for teams like Olympiacos, who don't have what it takes in defense to stand up to the Russians. Barcelona, on the other hand, have the best of both worlds. They can play the Olympiacos-level defense and have more than enough options in offense, especially since Arroyo is fit now. They have been nearly invincible here the past few year and the occasional slips were a consequence of decline in form and injury struggles. Barcelona have great defenders and can stand up to De Colo and Teodosic. I don't think CSKA can do equally well on the defensive end because they will have to use Freeland instead of Hines for the most part of the match because of Tomic. All due respect to CSKA and their season, we saw they're not invincible. Khimki and Laboral beat them and Barca are better than both those teams. They have to be the favorites here.