Xavi Pascual: "We have to go game by game, but the most important is to recover well"

Zenit head coach Xavi Pascual commented on the results of the match against Enisey (94:76) and assessed the upcoming away series.

— Thanks to all the fans that were over here. It was a pleasure to be here and in all November only today we played at home. We enjoyed very much and I think we played one serious game against one opponent that is making very good job all the season. They are serious, defensively, offensively well organization. I like them very much and I want to congratulate them. We try to put a good tempo during the game. And it was one moment that in the second quarter we could make the break of the game that finally was very important until the end.

— Andrey Vorontsevich said that in the first quarter they acted tightly defensively. At the same time, if you look at the statistics, Enisey had only three misses in 10 minutes. How is this correlated? Are you satisfied with how the team performed in the first quarter in their own half?

— Yeah, Enisey played very well, but also we tried to play good defense but we couldn't. Sometimes you don't play good defense and the other team score, but today we tried in the right way, but we couldn't stop them because they played very well. But the team was in focus, with good concentration, and if you continue like this, finally you find a way, and this is why we did it.

— In the Internet we found a photo where you playing tennis with colleagues from FC Zenit.

— No, no. It's not tennis. It's padel. It looks like tennis. Yes, I have some friends in football, and we play together.

— Will the team have the opportunity to prepare for a very difficult game against CSKA during the away series?

— Okay, first of all is the first three, because the first three are consecutive almost, because we are going to play Sunday, Thursday and Sunday, so we're going to play three games in 8 days. And after that, there is one break in that you have more time for the preparation. So it's a little bit different. But now, it's going to be difficult. Today Avtodor won in Samara with the last shot. We know that there's one team that always is very difficult to play there. So we have to go game by game, but the most important is to recover well physically, mentally, and to be concentrated for the next one.

— How would you evaluate Egor Ryzhov's today's performance? He set a record of 4 minutes playing this season and yesterday he played against the second team of CSKA and he played 33 minutes.

— Every time that he's going to the second team, he's playing very well. We follow him and he helps a lot and I'm very satisfied when he's going there. And he is practicing only with us all the time and we try to push him to play. It's one player that we believe in him, but he needs time to be ready for the highest level. But he has potential and everything will depend on himself.

— Denis Zakharov was absent today, what is the real reason why he was absent?

— Denis is a little bit cold with fever and had temperature. Nothing important. I think he is going to be ready for Saratov.