"We tried to shut down their leaders and limit three-pointers": Popovic and Abdul on the victory in Surgut

The head coach of Zenit-2 Oliver Popovic shared his impressions of the victory against University Yugra (88:106), which took place on March 10 in Surgut.

As I said before the match, Surgut plays very well at home. I think we had good focus today, prepared well for the game, and the guys played solidly for the first three quarters, especially on defense. Yugra is a tough team to face at home, they perform really well here. Yes, today it might have seemed like an easy win for us. But listen, we had to fight hard for it, especially in the first half. I'm satisfied with how we played for three quarters. But the fourth — I'm not happy with that because the players who don’t get much time on the court relaxed in the final quarter. That should never happen. But still, it was a well-deserved victory.

Zenit-2 forward Ilyas Abdul also commented on the away game against the Siberian team. In the match, he scored 5 points, made 4 assists, grabbed 4 rebounds and had 1 steal.

We are a young team, we push the fast break and take more shots. We do what is required of us, show our style of play, and work hard on defense. What did we focus on the most? First of all, we were told to shut down their strongest weapon — three-point shooting. It seems like that’s how they win most of their games. We tried to shut down their leaders and limit their three-point attempts. Sometimes we got lucky, sometimes we made tough shots. That’s how it went. We worked hard on defense, grabbed the rebounds and ran the break.