This is what the protagonists of the game had to say after the dust settled.
Pascual on Zenit win: "These numbers are excellent for a team like us."
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4 mins read
Xavi Pascual, Zenit St Petersburg
"All game our offense was more or less okay. Only in the last part of the game we were not as smart and we didn’t drive to draw some fouls, we were a little bit static. But we finished with 18 assists, 9 turnovers, 10 steals. These numbers are excellent for a team like us. But we were not effective. This is the only problem; in the second half we were not effective under the basket, some open shots, but okay, this is basketball. We played serious defense and this is why we won. We try to play well on both sides. I have to say that in Kazan we didn’t play well in offense. Today we played much better, but we are not effective, I don’t know exactly why. Especially under the baskets, we had a lot of chances to score and we didn’t. I think we deserved to score like 10 points more. Sometimes it is like this. But for sure if a team wants to play as a team it needs to play defense together and this is what we did tonight. I want to congratulate the club and the fans. It is amazing what I feel here. This is probably the most beautiful stadium in the competition with one of the greatest atmospheres. It’s amazing what I feel here."
Billy Baron, Zenit St Petersburg
"This is a special place to play. This s one of the better arenas to play in Europe for sure. I know how much pride they have in the game, so to come here and get a win with how much it means to them, to the team, to everything, it's huge. I played here in Lithuania many years ago so I understand how serious they take basketball and how tough it is to get wins here. So to get our second road win this season is huge and we just have to capitalize on that. There were some mistakes out there that we made and we just have to keep correcting those and take that to CSKA next."
Jordan Loyd, Zenit St Petersburg
"It was great to see the fans and play in front of the fans. As a team, we had a really bad showing a couple of days aga in VTB [United League] and we just wanted to bounce back, we wanted to fight, regardless of the outcome. We just wanted to show some character, some personality and we did that tonight. They're a great team, especially with the crowd behind them, but we just tried to stick to coach's plan, play great defense and then secure the rebounds and we did a great job of that down the stretch.”
Martin Schiller, Zalgiris Kaunas
"First of all, congratulations to Coach Pascual. I think defensively we wanted to take care of certain things on the ball movement end and I thought we did so. Still it wasn’t easy to find offense, which was difficult. A lot of respect to the guys for the fight. A lot of respect to the crowd, which obviously is more than our sixth man, highly important. I thought it was a very competitive game.”
Janis Strelnieks, Zalgiris Kaunas
“Tough one. The good this was we stepped it defensively. The bad thing was we had too many, let's say, bad turnovers. I had a couple of them in the first half and it gave them a lot of easy points. We have to start over again and be better.”
Josh Nebo, Zalgiris Kaunas
“That was a tough and very physical game tonight. We competed very hard, but we just couldn’t make shots at the end of the game and that was the difference for us. We just couldn’t make shots. I feel like tonight we competed very hard on defense and gave it our best.”