Maccabi to face Bologna

Maccabi proved their resilience in a victory which had lots of basketball for the purists but plenty of rough-and-tumble and a battle royal against the Muscovites.

CSKA began confidently and scored some easy baskets with J.R. Holden, Marcus Brown and Sergey Monya leading the way. The lead increased to nine points in the second quarter before Maccabi battled back to go in at halftime only a point in arrears at 42-41.

The Maccabi players tightened their defensive play in the early part of the third quarter and ended it 62-55 ahead. The 10,500 strong crowd, of whom only about 1,000 were supporters of the Russian team, then lifted their heroes to the victory which they had craved.

Once Maccabi took the lead they never looked back. Anthony Parker's brilliance and athleticism -- he led all scorers in the game with 27 points -- was the inspiration behind a battling performance. Brown was Moscow's top scorer with 23 points.

Skipper held off a late surge from their fellow Italians and then survived an overtime challenge to snatch their victory in the earlier semi-final.

Bologna had held the advantage for much of the time but

Siena slowly gnawed away at the lead which had grown to 10 points in the fifth minute of the third period. Siena forced overtime when with 12 seconds remaining, Michail Kakiouzis sank a three-point shot to make it 90-90.

Despite losing influential forward David Vanterpool, who fouled out with the bulk of the five-minute overtime period remaining, fellow American Marvis Thornton kept Siena in the picture with several key hoops.

Skipper had a three-point lead early in overtime but Siena levelled again at 102-102 when Thornton sank two free throws with 17.5 seconds left.

However, Bologna's Carlos Delfino then sank one of two throws and that was enough to clinch an exciting victory, though not in front of their own support.

Italian fans opted to stay away from the citing security fears. In a massive operation surrounding the event, up to 3,500 police and other forces sealed off the Yad Eliahu arena.

Delfino top-scored for Bologna with 27 points, while Thornton, who had 26, and Kakiouzis (23) led a balanced Siena offence. "It was a tough game. We lost it, won it, lost it and finally won it," said Skipper coach Jasmin Repesa. "We have the youngest team in the Euroleague, 11 of my players have never been to a Final Four before and the next thing you know we are in the final," he added.

Siena coach Carlo Recalcatti said: "We played a good game against a team which hardly made any mistakes, but we did not have enough transition from defense to offence."