Both Russian teams represented in the basketball Euroleague’s Top 16 – CSKA Moscow and UNICS Kazan – have kicked off the stage with victories.

­CSKA, the only undefeated team in the group stage, travelled to Olympiacos of Greece.

The game was equal throughout most of the 40 minutes. The visitors, who led a point after the first quarter, went four points behind at half-time.

But after the big break, the Armymen gradually started to dominate the game. A 62-58 lead by the end of the third quarter set a confident mood among Jonas Kazlauskas’ charges.

Nenad Krstic scored 18 points for CSKA and Viktor Khryapa added 16 more to help CSKA claim their first victory in the Top 16, 86-78.  

“I am very glad because we won this game against a very good team,” Jonas Kazlauskas, CSKA coach, told the team’s official website. “Olympiacos played very well in the first half and managed to control the game, especially thanks to their impressive accuracy from three-point range. We didn’t have the concentration needed and our defense didn’t work well. But in the third quarter the game changed. It took us only three minutes to start playing good defense and after we stopped Spanoulis, the situation became much better for us.”

Another Russian team – UNICS – hosted Turkish side Ulker in Kazan.

A 15-0 run in the second quarter saw the Turkish champions taking an impressive 41-24 lead by half-time.

However, the hosts managed to turn things around later on. In the final quarter, UNICS nosed ahead after a three-pointer from Henry Domercant.

Petr Samoylenko starred with a career high of 18 points, while Vladimir Veremeenko delivered 17 in Kazan’s 76-71 win.