Zenit center Hunter: “I don’t think CSKA is invincible and I don’t think they are better than us”

Zenit center Vince Hunter spoke about the atmosphere in the team after nine straight victories in the regular season of the VTB United League, and also shared his expectations from the match with CSKA.

On Friday, Zenit beat Paris Nizhny Novgorod with a score of 85:68, winning their ninth consecutive victory in the United League.

— First of all, Vince, congratulations on your victory, the ninth in a row. What are your impressions of the team’s performance and your own?

“It was a good, hard-fought game for us to get back into rhythm.” Nizhny Novgorod is not a team that is easy to beat, especially at home, so it was a useful match for us after a long break. I think we have a lot to work on, especially early in the game. But I think we finished the match well, showed excellent defense and played well on both sides of the court. We came here and achieved what we wanted – a landslide victory. I don’t remember exactly how we won, but it was an important win to boost our confidence ahead of the game against CSKA next week.

— Nine victories in a row. Tell us about the atmosphere in the locker room.

— Yes, nine wins in a row. We just try to get better every game. I hope we will approach the match with CSKA with good confidence in ourselves and each other. Our goal is to beat them and continue to improve in the next games before the playoffs, because that’s when it will really matter.

— What do you think about CSKA? You have a week to recover and prepare. We remember that disappointing defeat in Moscow, and some say that CSKA is an almost perfect team. What thoughts come to your mind when you think about this team?

“Well, they’re definitely not perfect, and that loss was really hard.” I think both games we lost we shouldn’t have lost. This is especially offensive when you know that your opponent is not stronger than you. I don’t think CSKA is stronger than us, and I don’t think we should have lost. We need to use this as motivation before the next match. Of course, they are considered favorites every year, this is CSKA. Therefore, there will be a lot of attention in the press and talk about them. But I don’t consider them invincible and I don’t think that they are better than us. In fact, we could have been undefeated this season, but these losses helped us learn something. Now we need to show how well we can play together against CSKA next week,” Hunter was quoted as saying by the official Zenit website.

On Saturday, December 7, Zenit will host CSKA in its arena. Watch the game live from 13:20 (Moscow time) on the Match TV channel, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.