Xavi Pascual: "Always we need to manage"
Zenit head coach Xavi Pascual summarized the third game of the VTB United League finals against CSKA (83:91) and answered journalists' questions during the post-match press conference.
— First of all, I think it's one game that we didn't open well. Our game in the beginning of the first 3-4 minutes was very bad. Defensively, we didn't control the rebound. Also, transition defense was very bad. After that, step by step, we started to feel the game. We came back to the game. Also, we finished the first quarter winning. But also, at the end of the second quarter, we lost the control of the motions again. We played bad 2-3 offence and defense. And CSKA took the first big advantage. After that in the second half I think it was very important to open the second half with two three-pointers consecutive. We came back immediately to the game and both teams were fighting until the end. The game was very close, one point up, one point down, two points, three points until the last part of the game that we could close this important game for us.
— At the end of the match, Georgy Zhbanov started limping, Alexey Shved was injured, and Sergey Karasev did not participate in today's game. What can you say about this?
— I hope all of them they will recover for the next game but in this moment I cannot tell you. In this moment that the three players are question for the next game. We'll see what is going on but in any case we if have five players, it's gonna be enough. We need to fight, we need to be ready and to find a way to win. This is play-off time and doesn't matter how but finally you need to win.
— After the first half, several Zenit players had a big number of fouls. How did this affect the game? Did the team slow down in aggression, did it force you to rebuild in defense?
— In all the games, it happens, different things for one team, for the other team. You need to manage, and we managed as better as we could. Sometimes we had to play with one strange line-up today because of the injuries. But finally we came to the last part of the game with all the players healthy, with all the players in focus, with all the players ready to play ball by ball and this is why finally we could win. But always we need to manage. In the next game it's going to be different and for the opening also it will be different. Every game is like this.
