In the last game with the Aktau “Caspiy” of the regular championship of the National League, the Presidential Basketball Club “Astana” inflicted their rivals the biggest defeat of the season.
Today, together along with ten Kazakhstanis, Jeremiah Hill, and Jeffrey Crockett, who debuts in the National League, were rostered for the game. But like yesterday, the foreign players did not enter the court and the match was played exclusively by Kazakhstani players. Robert Pan, Vadim Shcherbak, Rustam Murzagaliev, Dmitriy Gavrilov and Maxim Marchuk started the game.
Dmitriy Gavrilov confidently won a toss, launching an attack on the capital’s team, which Rustam Murzagaliyev confidently completed and opened the score in the match. Our team immediately took the lead, but «Caspiy» made every effort not to let our guys go far ahead. Four minutes later, the difference was only 5 points, but in the middle of the quarter, Robert Pan shot from behind the arc, scoring three unanswered three-pointers in a row and bringing the capital team's advantage to a double-digit number. The timeout at the initiative of the coaching staff of the Aktau team was not long in coming. The capital team had spent the first 10 minutes very actively, earning 32 points and thus having twice more points than their opponents. Yellow-turquoise continued to dominate the court in the second quarter. Already in the second minute, Askar Maidekin brought the advantage of his team to 20 points, and at the equator of the quarter Dmitriy Gavrilov polished +30 for “Astana”. However, the capital's basketball players were not going to stop there and before the end of the quarter, the up-and-coming Robert Pan earned the fortieth point of the handicap. As a result, the first half of the meeting ended in a crushing score — 60:22.
After a long break, the hosts continued to increase their lead, which soon exceeded 45 points. The Aktau team in the middle of the third quarter leveled the game a little and was able to playback a small part of the backlog. Thus, the third quarter was the best for our rivals in today's game. “Astana” before the final ten-minute win more than forty points, and the victory was already locked and loaded for our players. For the past 10 minutes, the capital’s team completely controlled what was happening on the court, while the game for the home team did not go well, and their already huge backlog continued to increase. At the start of the fourth minute of the final quarter, a gap of 50 points was already reached, and the only thing left for our players to do in this game was to reach a hundred points. Robert Pan in the last seconds of the game brought the score of “Astana” to a three-digit number and drew a line in this game — 102: 46 (32:16, 28: 6,
19:16, 23: 8) — a crushing victory for the capital team.
Most productive:
- “Astana” — Robert Pan held an extremely successful game, having a double-double — 18 points, 10 rebounds and added 3 assists and steals. On account of Askar Maidekin there are 15 points and 4 rebounds. 13 points + 6 rebounds from Vadim Shcherbak. Dmitriy Gavrilov was close to a double-double with 11 points and 8 rebounds. Andrey Litvinenko earned today 11 points and 4 rebounds.
- “Caspiy” — the best in the squad of our rivals was the captain of the Aktau team Aimurat Satkeev with 12 points and 4 rebounds, the American Travis Graham also showed himself well: 10 points and 4 rebounds.
Consequences: “Astana” is only two victories from the completion of its 4th win-win regular championship of the National League, and “Caspiy” completes the regular season, closing the standings.
The next match: on Sunday, February 2, the capital's basketball players will host a VTB United League guest match against the Belarusian team «Tsmoki-Minsk», and the next matches of the National League against «Sinegorye», which will be held on February 4 and 5, will be final in the regular season.
Detailed information about the tournament, standings, the schedule and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
