"Played without energy today": Popovic and Chikishev — after the loss to Dynamo
Zenit-2 head coach Oliver Popovic shared his thoughts after the loss to Dynamo (77:93) in the FONBET Super League regular season.
— I congratulate Dynamo on an absolutely well-deserved victory. We failed the first quarter, conceding a lot of points — 27, I think. Only in the second quarter was our defense normal — 16 points. Overall, today we played without energy and very unwisely on defense. There were several moments when we needed to defend differently, more intelligently, especially on their fast breaks, when we still had fouls to give before the bonus. We did not take advantage of that, and they simply scored easy points. As a result, the tempo of the game suited Dynamo, they took advantage of it and won comfortably.
— It seemed that after halftime there was a chance to get back into the game.
— That is exactly what I am talking about. In the third quarter we had a few good minutes, but then the concentration was lost. They scored a lot of easy points from fast breaks, while we had small fouls that we did not use. This is an experienced, strong team, probably at a top-2 or top-3 level, so they calmly brought the game to victory. There was some chance in the third quarter, but we did not use it.
Blue-White-Sky Blues guard Dmitry Chikishev answered journalists’ questions at the post-game press conference.
— Why did you fail to impose a fight in the closing minutes?
— I think it was not only in the closing minutes that we failed to impose a fight today. In general, throughout the whole game we had poor play. It felt like some players were underprepared. We just looked bad today.
— At some point the game went in runs: we made a 10:0 run, then the opponent responded with their own 19:0 run. Still, at the start of the second quarter you managed to cut the deficit to one possession. How do you explain these roller-coaster moments?
— Probably these were just spurts. At some point we wanted to win, then for some reason we relaxed again. I do not know, it just happened that way.
— How did you feel going into the game against the league leaders?
— Honestly, we prepared as usual. We played against Nizhny Novgorod — in my opinion, that team is much stronger than Dynamo, they play in the best league in our country. We prepared as for a regular game, as always. We wanted to win.
— What did you see as the main danger from the opponent?
— They play fairly fast basketball, they have many good players who convert three-point and mid-range shots well. Overall, the team has a lot of quality performers. We tried to prevent them from taking open shots, but in many ways we failed. They took a lot of open shots, and because of that we lost.
