On April 25 and 26, the final games of the Kazakhstan National Basketball Championship among men's teams of the National League will take place in Astana.
There was no page-one in the semi-final series of the games, and predictably the basketball team of Astana and «Barsy Atyrau» met in the final.
The series of games run to three wins. The third game «Astana» will be held at the Atyrau court on May 5-6.
Head Coach of «Astana» Mikhail Karpenko:
- The final phase of the season has come when every match is very important in terms of the result. This applies to the VTB League as well where we are fighting fiercely for getting into the playoffs, and the National Championship where the final series with «Barsy Atyrau» is ahead of us.
The team of «Barsy Atyrau» has a good roster. There are two American players John Taylor and Da-Kwan Cook and players of the National Team Nikolay Bazhin and Askar Maidekin as well as several experienced Kazakhstan players Pavel Ilyin, Mikhail Evstigneev, Dmitry Klimov, perhaps these players make up the backbone of the team and feel confident enough.
We have played 4 games in the league with «Barsy», 3 of them were quite tense, when we won with the smallest advantage, only in one match we managed to gain victory with a difference of 20 points. Therefore, we do not expect an easy walk, we should anticipate the opponent will play without pressure and will fiercely fight at the court to beat us.
First of all, we need to cope with players who often exacerbate the game on the court, who take the initiative and play one-on-one. In the attack, we need to be attentive, smart, and make the right decisions, because «Barsy» often changes the defense system, often switching from personal to zone protection. First of all, it will be important what decisions we will manage to find in the attack, and how effectively we in our turn will attack the opponent.
In any case, the only goal for us is a victory in every game, and I hope that we will achieve this result and will please our fans with a beautiful and spectacular game.
Games will be held in the hall of the Republican cycling track «Saryarka». The games start at 19.30. The entrance to the matches is free.
 «Samruk-Kazyna» National Welfare Fund |
 Uniform operator «Tourism Industry and Sports Support Fund» |
