Alexander Porotnikov: "I couldn’t accept that recovery would take a month"

Zenit U21 guard Alexander Porotnikov shared his emotions after receiving the February MVP award in the VTB United Youth League, spoke about recovering from injury, and highlighted the key moments of the upcoming final stretch of the season.

— The month started great — with a triple-double. After that, I just did what I know how to do. By the time of the games against UNICS-2, I already understood that I would be MVP. Very positive emotions — it’s nice to come back from injury and perform at an even higher level.

I couldn’t accept the fact that recovery would take a month. I trained my left hand, worked on my physical condition — I didn’t just sit around. After the cast was removed, I worked a lot on my shot; fortunately, I hadn’t forgotten it and quickly regained my technique. After the road trip to Moscow and Astana, I stayed almost every day for extra practice. Many thanks to Roman Knyazev and Artem Banchikov for finding the time. The results were encouraging — my three-point percentage increased by 17%. In short, I just worked a lot and rested little.

The decisive stage of the season promises to be exciting. MBA-MAI-Junior lost two games, and now we have the same number of losses. CSKA-Junior is also very close. The ending should be thrilling. We just need to keep working hard and improving our game. But the most important thing, of course, will be the Final Four. As for me, I hope the discomfort that is still present in my finger goes away as soon as possible.