"We had very big problems with fouls": Popovic and Khodorich — about the game with CSKA-2

Zenit-2 head coach Oliver Popovic commented on the outcome of the away match against Moscow's CSKA-2 (86:82):

I congratulate CSKA-2 on their victory. It was a solid, good game. We were just a bit short today. We had very big problems with fouls. Three of our players had 4 fouls, and another three fouled out with 5. We also had a short bench today — only 11 players. One of them was sick, so he was completely unavailable. CSKA-2 had a deep bench. Perhaps that was the key difference today — they have a large reserve and can rotate 10-12 players. We were close and even had a chance, but in the final moments, they played a couple of smart possessions.

Zenit-2 guard Artem Khodorich also shared his thoughts on the game. In the match against the army team, he scored 18 points, along with 2 rebounds, 1 steal and 1 block:

Honestly, we missed a lot of free throws. I think around ten. We lost the battle on the boards, gave up too many rebounds. There were a lot of unnecessary fouls. I believe that's the only reason we lost. Other than that, we shot with a decent percentage and had the desire to win. We started, as usual, poorly, but then we caught up. There will be a rematch in St. Petersburg, and we'll see who wins there.