The Presidential Basketball Club “Astana” pleased its fans with a victory in the home season-opener of the VTB United League season over BC “Lokomotiv”, Krasnodar.
A tough and uncompromising competition ensued from the very start of the game, and neither “Astana” nor “Loko” could make a significant lead in the first 10 minutes. True, at the end of the quarter, the guests managed to capitalize on an unnecessary foul, thanks to which the Kuban team won 4 points in the first quarter. In the second quarter, “Loko” began to actively pressure and less than in three minutes the gap had exceeded ten points. Emil Rajkovic players tried to restore balance in the game, but alas, the first half of the game ended with the score — 42:54 in favor of the quests.
Returning from the locker room, the capital's basketball players were determined to fix everything and quickly reduced their backlog, but they failed to catch up with the opponents in the third quarter, nevertheless they managed to reduce the gap to only 3 points before the final quarter. “Lokomotive” at the start of the fourth quarter made another breakthrough and returned to the comfort zone, having 10 points in advantage. But “Astana” fought desperately and three minutes before the end of the match they were behind only by 1 point. After another minute, the capital basketball players first leveled the score, and then for the first time after the first period came forward. The ending of the match turned out to be a very nervous, where referees had to even use a video review system. Nevertheless, our players were mentally tougher in the clutch time, and they grabbed a very important win over one of the top teams of the league — 90:88 (21:25, 21:29, 25:16, 23:18).
The game turned out to be difficult for both teams. And despite the fact that our guests were ahead of almost the entire game, “Astana” showed their determined character, which brought her the victory today. Thanks to this victory, “Astana” broke into the top five, ahead of “Lokomotive”, “Nizhny Novgorod” and CSKA.
Most productive: The starting five at “Astana” practically did not rest today, and it was they who had achieved the result today: Coti Clarke (26 points, 5 rebounds), Malcolm Hill (24 points, 7 assists), Dusan Ristic (21 points, 9 rebounds), Alexander Zhigulin (12 points, 7 rebounds), and Jeremiah Hill was on hand today (5 points, 5 rebounds, 16 assists). And if you look at the opponents, then the most problems for our defense were Sam Dekker (12 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists), Will Cummings (16 points), Dmitriy Kulagin (15 points, 5 assists) and Johnny O'Brain (13 points, 6 rebounds).
Record: The point guard of Astana Jeremiah Hill made 16 assists, which is the best result of the season. The overall record in the League belongs to DJ Cooper — 23.
Hero: Malcolm Hill. BC“Astana” import player roster was completely changed at the end of the last season, but new heroes came to replace the old leaders. Malcolm was the most dangerous player in the Kazakhstan team, scoring 24 points with 4 of 6 from behind the arc (the rest of the team had three 3 points in total) and 7 assists.
Head coach of “Astana” — Emil Rajkovic:
- It was a very difficult game for us, as the team was not yet fully staffed. «Loko», on the contrary, has a very deep bench and a high-quality selection of the players. Due to the small rotation, it was very difficult to keep up with them, but at the end of the game, thanks to the support of the fans, we got an additional boost of energy, we began to play more and better defensively and manage to win!
Head coach of “Lokomotiv-Kuban” — Luca Banchi:
- Congratulations to BC “Astana” on a victory. Up to the halftime, we were leading “+12”, but then allowed the opponent to return to the game. Unfortunately, in those moments when we had to show composure and concentration, we made mistakes and lost control of the game.
“Astana” will hold the next matches away on October 15 and 16, the capital basketball players will fly to Aktau to visit “Caspiy”, where they will hold the first two matches in the new season of the National League. The next match within the VTB United League regular season players of Emil Rajkovic will play in the Moscow Region, against the local BC “Khimki”.
Detailed information about the tournament, standings, the schedule and match results are published in the Tournaments section.
 «Samruk-Kazyna» National Welfare Fund |
 Uniform operator «Tourism Industry and Sports Support Fund» |
