Andrea MAZZON
Avtodor head coach:
“I am really proud of our players and they deserved this win because they played a very-very tough game in not easy environment. The game was played with 40 degrees inside the arena. It was really incredible and very difficult for the players to play the game like that. However, the guys played super serious. They made some rookie mistakes, a little bit turnovers. Of course this is normal for some players to make some kind of mistakes that are typical for the first time when you play the game like this. For sure for me it’s incredible for the high-level tournament like this how could we miss so many free throws (11 of 22)? However, I can understand this because the players were a little bit nervous and under pressure.

Generally they responded in a super way tonight. I’m very proud of them but remember that was just the first game. We should forget it. Let’s think about our next game. We will play at home in front of our spectators. We also should remember that now we are playing using a point system. We know that we have an 11-point advantage. In any case, however, we are going to win the next game without thinking about the score. We may start thinking about what to do according to the point system only in the fourth quarter.

I don’t want to talk about individuals because it will be unfair as everyone gave his efforts and tried to do his best. It’s very good start for us. We still continue to have a winning streak so far and this is going to enforce our confidence. But we have a lot of work to do to get better, to be where we want to be. Still tonight it was a good test for us as we played against extremely physical team and we are probably still learning how to play against the teams like that.”