Aleksander Sekuliс: "We played against a very good team"

Zenit head coach Aleksander Sekulic shared his thoughts following the home victory over MBA-MAI (83:69) and answered journalists’ questions at the post-game press conference.

— I'm very happy with the result, with the performance of the team, most of the game. The circumstances that we are in right now are really challenging for me and for the whole team. So that's why this game was very important because now after this game we have almost 7 days break where we can focus on ourselves, on our team which is almost like a new team with the players coming out of the injuries, with Luka coming here, is a lot of changes.

Especially after the PARMA — game where we suffered the most regarding our health status. We didn't have more than two or three practices together, we just were traveling and playing games. So now we have time to reset, to settle down, to find the team's identity, the players understand the roles, also to connect to each other and play together. 

And why I'm happy for the win is because we played against a very good team. They showed their quality in the previous games. And regarding all the circumstances, that's why I'm happy. 

— Share your thoughts on Luka Samanic’s performance. He seemed to be involved in almost every offensive possession today. Was that a forced decision — since you only have one center — or an attempt to integrate him into the team as quickly as possible?

— First of all, if I go back a little bit, we lost Poythress who was for us maybe the best player or the most consistent one, very important part of our offense and defense. Now with Luka coming of course we want to take advantage of his qualities. We had only one day with him on the practice so it was very difficult to integrate him in a team that we want him. So we had to improvise in a way to use him a lot on the offense. And of course it was quite difficult to fit all the preparation in one day since he only had one training session with us but we tried to improvise in order to make him as a player as much as possible. We anticipated how they were going to defend us and that's why he was also very much involved because this was our biggest advantage.

— You already have one Luka in the Slovenian national team, who is the leader there. Can Zenit’s Luka become a leader as well?

— Let's see. What the problem with injuries is that when you bring the player in the middle of the season you change team, you change the roles. So we need to get used to it. We'll see how it goes, we know what are his qualities and I believe he's on the right path to become one of the leaders of the team.

— Why didn’t you bench Trent Frazier after he picked up his fourth foul?

— Sometimes coaches, we need to make tough decisions, also risky ones and this was the risk we took, and unfortunately he made his fifth foul which was an unusual… But at the same time I'm happy he made five fouls because he shows the commitment he had, he put to this team to defend. Sometimes you need to make falls to sacrifice for the good of the team.