After beating Avtodor Saratov 91-76 in Game 3 of the best-of-five final series in Moscow, CSKA is just one win away from capturing its seventh-straight Russian basketball title.
Unlike Wednesday's game where CSKA allowed Avtodor to steal a 88-84 win in the final minutes to tie the series 1-1, the army team took control from the start Thursday, surging to a 50-35 halftime lead.
But Andrei Sepelev, the game's leading scorer with 23 points, led a furious Avtodor rally to cut the deficit to just six points, 72-66, with 5:40 left. Nevertheless, CSKA regained the initiative and held on for the victory.
"We lost Game 2 because after our victory in Game 1 in Saratov, some of our players thought they'd won the series," CSKA coach Stanislav Yeremin said Thursday.
Now the series shifts back to the city on the Volga river for Game 4 Tuesday and Game 5, if necessary, Thursday in the brand new 1,500-seat Zvyozdny arena, which was opened last week.