"A very tough game as always against Zadar, considering the selection and the way of playing, it's always difficult for everyone here. It's not good that we lost, what's good about basketball is that we played in Jazine, in a place where everything smells like basketball. It also smelled like our triumph because in 32 minutes we were better, we lost in moments when we missed five or six shots under the hoop, some from penetration, some from cooperation. We allowed Zadar to come back, with some shots like Vlada's that he has been doing his entire career. We lacked a little intelligence, focus to make better use of a small foul. We lost confidence through missed, but created situations. Zadar managed to score some difficult three-pointers and in the end won. It wouldn't have been undeserved if we had won. We both played without important players, Kapusta and Rebec, maybe that also influenced the situation that neither we nor they had enough ball flow," said the coach of the "students" Petar Mijović after the game.
SC Derbi will play away to Spartak in Subotica in the next round.
"Every next game is a struggle for us to achieve enough wins to survive. The players gave their all, we missed shots, but that's part of the game. We had many games where we were in control for a long time, losing in the end and in overtime. We're moving forward with a focus on the next step, the game with Spartak," Mijović concluded.
On the other hand, Zadar's strategist, Danije Jusup, was expectedly pleased with his team's eighth triumph.
"A great victory, you could feel that tension at the beginning because of the importance of the game. They were great, they scored from eight meters, from the backboard and gained confidence, and we were losing it. We didn't give up, we knew that we played good defense for 35 minutes and we shouldn't have stopped. We didn't stop, it came back to us, we won the game with defense and rebounding. Žganec holds the defense, no matter how badly he shot, that's why I held him, and in my opinion the defense won the game. I believe that this victory in a difficult game will give us a boost. We had to play without Kapusta, who is in the recovery phase from a leg injury, and Mekić played at point guard, who is not his vocation. He came to put pressure on, it wasn't easy for him. Let's move on and I hope we will be better when Borna returns," said Jusup.
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