Oliver Popović: "At the end of the game, we should have fouled earlier"
Zenit-2 head coach Oliver Popovic commented on the home loss to Izhevsk's Kupol Rodniki in overtime. The 21st round FONBET Super League match ended with a score of 84:85 in favor of the visitors.
— This is the third game in a row we’ve lost in the final moments. In principle, this is probably my fault, because if these three games are similar and we lost each one, then it’s my responsibility. It’s going to be very difficult to make the playoffs. What can I say… Yes, there were many mistakes, once again we made silly fouls: when we needed to, we didn’t foul, and then we fouled at a very crucial moment of the game. I might be wrong, but the decisions in offense were very, very poor. Yes, we are short on rotation today, but it still seems like we could have won this game. But in the end, I again refused to foul. We should have fouled earlier, 10 seconds before the end, but I didn’t. I thought that our small lineup, like in the last game against Revda, could defend calmly. But apparently, I was wrong.
— Both against Temp-SUMZ and today, you lost in the final moments, but the situations were different. What exactly was lacking today?
— As I said, both against Revda and this opponent, I thought that the small lineup could hold up defensively. Apparently, that was my mistake. We should have fouled both against Revda and today against Izhevsk, 10 seconds before the end, to give ourselves the last possession. Instead, it ended with no chance. The situations were different, but in the moments when we needed to defend properly, we always ended up giving up and-one plays. Today we allowed far too many ond-ones for the opponent. That’s just a gift in a game like this, it’s way too much.
— Considering how tough February has been, will the league break benefit the team?
— I can’t say what lineup we’ll have. Some players will go to the national team to train. Yes, February was very tough. I don’t know what our lineup will be after the break. Whether Krivykh will play or not is unclear — we still don’t know the situation with his knee. What we have is what we have. For now, we have eleven players, and we’ll see what happens next.
