Trent Frazier: "We did a good job in the second half just turning the game around"

Zenit guard Trent Frazier highlighted the key moments that helped his team secure a victory over UNICS (89:71) in the Kondrashin and Belov Cup final. At the end of the tournament, the player was named to the symbolic five.

— Trent, congrats on the win. It was a kind of chase. You had to play under the score for a long time. Was it mentally hard?

— Yes, of course, we know UNICS is going to give us their best shot, they play really hard, physical. I thought we did a good job at halftime, just changing our mindset, being more physical with them and equalizing the battle. It started on defense and I thought we answered really well, coming out, playing really tough and it gave us a little spark. So I thought we did a good job in the second half just turning the game around and changing our mindset, being more physical and getting out into our gameplay, which is running. And I thought we did a good job on that.

— What was the coach's reaction when you were trailing in the first half?

— Like I just said, it was just halftime. I mean, we came here and we had to change our mindset. They were out-toughing us on offensive glass. We had to box out, be more physical and play to our strengths and run. I thought we did a good job in that third quarter just running, playing at our pace and I thought we did a good job just wearing them down and tiring them out. And that's what we were able to separate on the scoreboard. We just got to continue, to keep that in our mind on how well we play when we run really fast and play fast. And we do a good job at that.

— It is our fifth back-to-back win in this competition. Was there any kind of pressure before the game?

— Uh, no, no pressure. Um, like I said, we're still all learning each other, new staff, new players, new everything. One thing we could control is how hard we play. And I thought we did a good job, like I said, coming in that second half playing really hard. Um, and that's what we can control right now. We were able to pull out, win the trophy, obviously to keep that in St. Petersburg. That's our goal — to continue to win. Like I said, we just got to continue to learn each other, just be together and just play hard.

— Who you dedicate this victory to?

— To coach. He's not here. Hopefully he watches this game tonight and we can send him some luck from this trophy to help him get the Eurobasket trophy. So we hope he can do the same.

— And where is the glass of champagne?

— Zhora (Georgy Zhbanov) is the MVP. Zhora has a glass of champagne. MVP treats everybody nice. So he should have champagne here.