This Saturday, on December 10, a metropolitan basketball club «Astana» will hold a game in Karaganda, where it will meet with the award-winning club from the city of Krasnodar «Lokomotiv-Kuban».
 
The club from Krasnodar occupies the 5th place in the VTB League standings. The last weekend «Loco» confidently won the current leader, CSKA Moscow. Krasnodar demonstrates a good result in the Euro Cup too. This game will not be easy for Astana residents, but Ilias Papatheodorou's wards are prepared for a battle.
 
«Our opponent,«Lokomotiv», is a team of the highest level. They showed high level of skills in the match against CSKA Moscow, which they were able to win. They will play 40 minutes with great energy, and it will be a difficult test for us,» — commented a head coach of «Astana» on the upcoming match.
 
The match will be held in Karaganda, in the arena of sports centre «Zhastar». Game starts at 16.00, Astana time. Free admission!

Russian «Lokomotiv Kuban» won Kazakh «Astana» on the road – 71:51(19:9, 16:13, 17:17, 19:12).

Astana and Lokomotiv-Kuban were found side by side in the tournament table by the game, and had win series on their account too (3 for Kazakh team, 6 for Russian one). Nevertheless Russians grabbed advantage in the first quarter. Strong game of Yan Vougioukas and Kevin Jones under the rim gave big troubles to yellow-blue equiped team, Andrey Zubkov, who joined the game, made the things for hosts even worse. Loko had a two-digit advantage in the first quarter already, and went on playing effectively through the whole game, not allowing its rival to catch up. Achieving the set goal by the very beginning of the game, Kuban team continued their victorious conquest and left their opponents far behind.
 
Top Scorers:

«Astana»: Rob Lowery (13), Dimitrios Katsivelis (11), Ousman Krubally (10+6 reb)

«Lokomotiv Kuban»: Kevin Jones (16 + 5 reb), Andrei Zubkov (15+6 reb), Mardy Collins (11+8 reb+7 ast)

lias Papatheodorou, Head Coach of «Astana»:
– Congratulations to «Lokomotiv», this win has been absolutely deserved. From the very beginning, the rival pressed us, and didn’t let us catch the rhythm in offense. It’s the first reason for our defeat. We tried to find a decision, use our defense, but we failed.
 
Sasa Obradovic, Head Coach of «Lokomotiv Kuban»:
– It was a great tactical game. We stopped «Astana’s» leaders – Miller and Lowery, we pulled their playing down. It was a tough game – we arrived to Kazakhstan early in the morning; we were looking for our game on the court for a long time, but we managed to win.
 
Astana will have a road game, next and final this year, with Zenith on December 21 in Sain-Petersburgh at Sport Centre «Yubileyniy» in the frames of VTB League.