Andrey Vorontsevich: "The most important thing Is that the team wins"

The guest of the new interview on Zenit TV is Andrey Vorontsevich. Today’s away game against Uralmash (60:78) marked the Russian forward’s 100th appearance for Blue-White-Sky Blues.

— Andrey, congratulations on your 100th game for Zenit. You are the 21st player in club history to reach this milestone. What are you feeling?

— A win is always good. Statistics and personal milestones are, of course, great. But the most important thing is that the team wins. We won today. Naturally, I feel amazing. There is always something to improve — not without mistakes. The 100th game is wonderful, and we keep moving forward. God grant health to me and all my teammates in our club and beyond. I wish everyone good health.

— The most interesting thing is that all these games were played consecutively. What’s the secret of a 38-year-old veteran?

— There are no secrets — just love for your craft and gratitude for every day. Thank God, we keep going. So, knock on wood — onward we go.

— Any guesses which current players are also members of the "Club 100"?

— Frazier, Karasev. Who else? That’s all… Oh, Goshka, right. Goshka — forgot about him, sorry, brother. And Zhora Zhbanov, yes.

— The game was very physical today. At times it even seemed overly physical. What did the coach tell you in those moments?

— First of all, the coach warned us beforehand, and we already knew it. He repeated it again: be ready for physical basketball, be ready to take hits, and be ready to fight. So it wasn’t a surprise for us. We knew they were fighters who battle until the end. Since we lost to them at home, of course we wanted to play well for ourselves and for our fans — to get revenge, so to speak. There were a few moments right on the edge of a serious unsportsmanlike foul. In one episode, when Vlad Emchenko did a somersault, I even shouted that he was a ninja. That was quite a moment — thank God everyone is alive and well. There were a few unsportsmanlike fouls, of course. And a tough battle under the basket and for rebounds. We keep working — the main thing is to win.

— You managed to score a lot of points in transition today. What made that possible?

— Defense. Good defense allowed us to score in fast breaks. Our guards played aggressively, and the big men helped them. Everyone stayed close to their matchup and tried to play for steals. That’s the most important thing — to play across the entire court. As they say in basketball, you can’t rest on defense; you can only catch your breath a little on offense.

When a guard stays low, pressures the ball, and defends tightly from baseline to baseline, the offensive player has no chance to rest — he gets tired too, trying to beat his defender.

First of all, I’d like to highlight our defense. Hopefully, it will remain just as strong. Of course, we make mistakes — basketball is a game of good and bad moments. But the result speaks for itself: we won today, and our strong defense paid off.

— What needs to carry over into the next away game against PARMA Perm?

— First and foremost, we need to keep our team play. I want to highlight several possessions where we made five or more passes in a single attack. It fills you with joy when the team plays unselfishly, shares the ball, and finds great scoring opportunities. Even if someone misses, you can see the music of the game. Hopefully, we’ll keep that music going. We need to maintain the same mindset and the same support for one another that we had today. Of course, there will be mistakes — you can’t avoid them — but mistakes give you the opportunity to become better. If none of us made mistakes, we would all be, conditionally speaking, basketball gods. So we’re still learning, and we have room to grow. Step by step, we move forward. Congratulations on the win, Zenit!