"We made too many mistakes": Popovic and Aksenov reflect on loss in Revda

Zenit-2 head coach Oliver Popovic summed up the first game of the Fonbet Super League semifinal series against Temp-SUMZ, which ended with a 85:71 victory for the Ural team.

Congratulations to Temp on the win. You know, when we allow 14 offensive rebounds, commit 18 turnovers, and shoot only 37% on two-point attempts, it’s very hard to beat a team like Revda. They’re a very good, experienced team with deep rotation. So yes, it was tough to win today. We’ll try to make sure we don’t repeat today’s mistakes in the second game. We gave up a lot of easy points and made a lot of errors.

Zenit-2 guard Daniil Aksenov also shared his thoughts after the first away game of the series. He was the top scorer for his team in the match, finishing with 23 points, 4 assists, 3 steals and 1 rebound.

It was our first away game. It’s clear that we’re a young team, and maybe we couldn’t handle the nerves. We were late on a lot of plays. We made too many mistakes in situations we had specifically prepared for. There were a lot of unforced turnovers, and our shot-making suffered. I think that’s because our average team age is about 21–22 years old. It sounds like an excuse, but the semifinals and playoffs in general are a different kind of game. You need to show grit and character in every moment. If you hang your head, get upset, or frustrated, you won’t win games like this. So for the guys, this is all experience. First playoff game, nerves, playing away from home — I think it was tough for them. But that experience will help both them individually and us as a team going forward.