"Relaxation is not allowed": Popovic and Dulkay on the last round of the Super League regular season

Zenit-2 head coach Oliver Popovic commented after the 30th round of the Fonbet Super League-2024/25, where his team defeated SSOR Lokomotiv Kuban (89:85). The Serbian coach summarized the regular season and answered questions during the post-match press conference.

— Coach, congratulations on the victory and finishing the regular season in fourth place. What can you say about the game and the season overall?

— Yes, fourth place is good for us. It seems like everyone is satisfied, except for me. I'm never satisfied. I thought we could do better this year. It's just that for a couple of reasons, we ended up in fourth place. But still, the fourth spot gives us the advantage of playing at home before the playoffs. That’s very important. It’s already clear that we’ll face Novosibirsk. As for today’s and the last game against Rostov — the defense was very poor. Both then and today, we thought it would be easy, but there are no easy games. On paper, yes, our team is stronger than Loko or BARS-RGEU, but we need to show that on the court. There should be no relaxation in defense against Novosibirsk.

— During the match today, Artem Khodorich was injured. What is the nature of the injury, and can we say how long he will be out?

— Unfortunately, yes, Khodorich got injured. The first prognosis is that he broke his finger. An ambulance has arrived, and I’m waiting for a call from the team doctor. I hope it’s not that bad, but so far the first prognosis is a finger fracture. I don’t know yet how long he will be out.

— Can we say that Maxim Karvanen has fully integrated into the team?

— Max was in Zenit before and went through the local academy. He’s a good player. Yes, he has fully played with us for the last month. He’s already getting a normal amount of time on the court, playing good defense, and even looking decent on offense. That’s why we signed Max — we think he’s a solid power forward.

— Today, the third quarter didn’t go as you’d like, but in the fourth, the team focused on defense. What happened in the third quarter? Was it a relaxation due to the score difference or simply failure to follow the coach's instructions?

— Generally, we always play well in the third quarter. Today it didn’t happen because, after the first half, some players probably thought it would be an easy win. But that never happens. Unfortunately, we need to defend. In just four minutes, they scored 12-14 points, and we only scored 2. Due to our poor defense, they started to feel confident in attack and then began scoring both tough and easy points. We didn’t defend well in the third quarter, and that’s why it didn’t go well.

— What mood are you and the team in as you approach the playoffs?

— Unfortunately, I’m not in a very good mood right now because Khodorich is injured. I don’t know, I hope it’s not serious. But as I said, the first prognosis isn’t good. We’ll see. We’ll prepare, we have time — 7-8 days before Novosibirsk. It’s a serious opponent, it won’t be easy. I hope that home court advantage will give us some edge, but we’ll see how it goes.

Zenit-2 forward Mikhail Dulkay also shared his thoughts on the end of the regular season and his condition after his recent injury.

— How do you think the match went?

— From the beginning to the end of the game, we had lapses in one-on-one defense. We’re currently testing new defensive schemes, trying to get used to them. But that’s not the main issue. The main problem is that we’re not defending one-on-one. We’ll work on that. Offensively, the first half went well, we scored 51 points. In the second half, we started missing open shots. We had an 11-point lead, but because of that, the score evened out, and it became a clutch game.

— Summarize Zenit-2’s performance in the regular season. You finished in fourth place and will face Novosibirsk in the playoffs.

— I think it’s a good result. We have the advantage of home court. We played Novosibirsk twice in the regular season, winning both times. But relaxation is not allowed. We’ll prepare for the opponent, analyze them thoroughly and train. We have a week, so we’ll work.

— How do you feel? This is your second game after recovering from your hand injury. How are you playing now? Are you still protecting your hand, or are you actively defending and attacking?

— Well, in terms of my finger, it’s already better than in the last game. But again, I committed a lot of fouls, confirming my status as the most foul-prone player in the Super League. I need to work on that, improve. Sometimes I can’t keep up with my feet.

— What helped you win the game in the final moments of the fourth quarter?

— I think it was because, offensively, we just… We just played well in attack. On defense, we gave them everything they could score. Sometimes the opponent didn’t take advantage of their chances, so thank God we won.