Aleksander Sekulic: "We made elementary mistakes throughout the whole game"

Zenit head coach Aleksander Sekuliс commented on the home loss to Pari Nizhny Novgorod (89:99) in a VTB United League game and answered journalists’ questions at the post-match press conference.

— The main reason is that our focus was not on the level we had to be, and it's unacceptable the way we handle some things. Regardless, they shoot the ball extremely well, a lot of times second chance points. Whenever we had a chance to come back, we'd make one or two basic mistakes, stupid mistakes, we let him go back and it was going on the whole game. These things are not acceptable for the team we have.

— You have already mentioned Nizhny Novgorod’s high three-point shooting percentage. Is this partly the fault of Zenit’s guards, or was it simply that the opponent was making tough shots that couldn’t really be stopped?

— It was both. There were a couple of mistakes. We made crucial mistakes. Some of them were tough shots. They just gained confidence from offense to offense. But on the other side, we were not scoring enough. We had open shots, we had great looks, but we didn't score. It's both. But it's connected to us mainly because if you make a couple of mistakes, you let them shoot open shots, then they gain confidence. And his confidence that we're going to call a game.

— When can we expect the debut of Xaver Moon, and is it possible to say that there was not enough one more point guard in today's game?

— Honestly, I don't know. When he's coming, it's about logistics. So this is something I cannot answer, hopefully next week. I mean, you wanted to talk about the quality, ok. Sure, you miss a player like this, but there is no excuse if you need to defend. They scored 99 points, it's too much. This is something that I cannot, as a coach, accept. There's no excuse for this.