The Kazakhstan Cup among men's teams started in Almaty, and the very first match of the tournament between “Tobol” and “Astana” became extremely interesting: Kostanay almost beat the current champions.
The Cup is held without the participation of imports, and if two two players from Tobol’s roster do not participate, then 6 player had to become spectators for BC “Astana”. The game started in an equal fight and after a couple of minutes the capital team took the lead. Toward the end of the first quarter, “Tobol” led its rivals to take 10 points lead, but in the end the first quarter it was only 7 points. In the second quarter, the Kostanay team began to reduce the gap and by half way of the quarter, the difference was only 1 point in favour of “Astana”, surprisingly scoreboard showed 40:38 in favor of “Tobol” by the end of first half.
The tough fight continued in the third 10 minutes, but the capital squad once again managed to capture the role of leader. “Astana” could close the game and increase the gap, and the difference between the teams kept around 3-5 points. In the end, after three quarters, PBC “Astana” was only 6 points ahead. The capital team had a power start to the fourth quarter, and their advantage exceeded 10 points. But “Tobol” was clearly not ready to give up and 2 minutes before the end of the match the score was tie. These two minutes were very nervous and the outcome of the match was not clear until the very end. “Astana” was able to snatch victory in this game —
82:83.
The key point: everything was decided in this game in the last seconds. “Astana” was leading by 1 point, but “Tobol” had a chance to tip the scales in its direction, but their last offence failed, and “Astana” took away the victory.
Best players: Anton Bykov became the best in “Tobol” with an impressive double-double — 30 points, 18 rebounds. “Astana”’s
Rustam Murzagaliyev was at his best (21 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals), and solid double-double on the account of Dmitriy Gavrilov (10 points, 13 rebounds and 2 blocks), who made a play of the night blocking Tobol’s attempt to win this game.
Next match: Tomorrow, on April 3, the capital basketball players will have a game with team of Atyrau region, game starts at 4:30 pm Nur-Sultan’s time.
We remind you that the tickets can be purchased for the following home matches of the team against
«Lokomotiv Kuban» on April 15 and
«Enisey» on April 21.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and results of matches are published in the section
Tournaments.
