Sergey Karasev: "Our aggressive defense paid off"

Zenit captain Sergey Karasev summed up the second semifinal game against Lokomotiv-Kuban (85:80).

— First of all, I want to say a huge thank you to the fans for the atmosphere tonight. What happened in the arena today — 50% of it is their contribution, the energy they gave us throughout the game. We understood that the second game would be completely different from the first. Loko started very aggressively, playing tough, bone-on-bone, and the referees were letting us play. It’s playoff time. At first, we gave them a bit of room to find their rhythm, but in the second quarter, we made a great 17:0 run and got back into the game. After that, it turned into a kind of back-and-forth battle, where our desire and our aggressive defense really paid off, and we managed to pull out the win in the end.

— How much easier did it become to play in the fourth quarter after several Loko players fouled out?

— I wouldn’t say it became much easier. They’ve got guys who can come off the bench. Everyone on the floor was giving it 100%. So I wouldn’t say that had a major impact.

— Zenit made a 17:0 run in just two and a half minutes in the second quarter. What made that possible?

— We started executing the game plan that we worked on practice. We scored a couple of fast-break points, played solid defense, ran the floor, and hit a few threes. Plus, the crowd really pushed us. We know that Loko is a team that plays fast, aggressive basketball with lots of momentum swings. They can go on runs or give them up. They’ve done it plenty of times during the regular season — coming back from big deficits. We were ready for that, and that’s why we were able to make that run.

— Your two three-pointers at the beginning of the third quarter were very important. Were your teammates specifically setting you up at that point?

— It just happened that way. In one case, Dwayne got the ball in the post, they doubled him, and he sees the court really well — he passed it to me. In the second instance, Vince caught his man on a screen, and Alexey passed it to me in the corner. It wasn’t anything rehearsed — just ball movement. And the coach always tells us: if we move the ball, if we play aggressively and as a team, there will be a lot of open shots. All that’s left is to make them.