The team of the basketball club «Astana» confidently dominated during the two and a half quarters in the away game with «Nizhny Novgorod», but in the end of the match the hosts managed to make a comeback and snatch the victory.
Newcomer of “Astana” Eric Buckner won the jump ball, but our team failed to score points in the first attack. «Nizhniy Novgorod» also didn’t score well in their first attack. As a result, the scoring was opened by Eric Buckner, while realizing the “and one”. In general, the start of the game turned out to be extremely ineffective and in the first three minutes of the game, apart from the points from Buckner, only Vadim Shcherbak was accurate from the penalty line once, and the hosts could not hit our ring in any way. Until the middle of the period, the teams exchanged only two effective attacks and in five minutes of the game scored only 10 points for two — “Astana” was in the lead by two points. Then the hosts quickly leveled the score and even took the lead, but Ojars Silins made a spectacular dunk, plus two points from Hill and after one free throw from Michael Thompson the score became equal. Maxim Marchuk brought our team forward, and Thompson strengthened the situation. The last points in the quarter remained with the hosts, who lost the first half of the game with the score — 13:16. In the second quarter, Zoran Lukic's team again had difficulties with scoring, while our Jeremiah Hill scored from all distances, scoring a three-pointer, two-pointer and two free throws. After that, the difference in the score reached a double-digit figure, but the hosts woke up by that time, gaining the first points in this period. The advantage of our team was above the line of ten points, and after an accurate three-pointer from Thompson, the difference increased to 17 points. Opponents also attacked successfully from time to time, but the ending of the half remained with our players. Hill completed “and one” successfully, and in the last seconds after an assist from Hill, Vadim Shcherbak set the final score in the first half of the match — 28:47.
The result of Astana's game at the end of the first half of the match was a serious claim for victory, and Jeremiah Hill's game — 18 points, 2 assists and a steal deserved some special attention. But twenty minutes was not the whole match and it was too early to rejoice at the success. The third quarter began under pressure from our players. Eric Buckner converted two attacks, finishing the second with a powerful dunk and bringing the score difference to an already impressive twenty points. Until the middle of the third period, “Astana” kept their advantage in the region of twenty points, but then our players had a slight decline, and the opponent, on the contrary, became more active. Quite quickly, the Nizhny Novgorod team managed to win back almost ten points before the end of the third quarter, with the last point scored by Vadim Shcherbak — 51:63 in favor of “Astana”. The advantage of Emil Rajkovic's players was no longer comfortable enough, but remained quite significant before the fourth quarter. “Nizhny Novgorod” from about the second half of the third period, began to act more confidently than before and started slowly approach our team. The hosts moved on to even more decisive action at the start of the fourth quarter. In three minutes “Astana” was unable to score a single point, while “NN” reduced the gap to five, thereby greatly exhalating the intrigue. Jeremiah Hill's return gave confidence in the success of our team, who started the lead with a spectacular dunk, and then strengthened our advantage from a distance. Vadim Shcherbak supported him, with his accurate three-pointer, bringing the lead of “Astana” to 13 points five minutes before the final buzzer. After a couple of attacks from the hosts, Thompson sent a floater to the target, which again made Astana's advantage double-digit two minutes forty seconds left. However, in the remaining time, the hosts, who became noticeably more active and began to confidently make up for lost time. Plus, our players couldn't cope with their nervousness and made mistakes. The gap of 11 points literally in a minute turned into only +2, when there was just over a minute to play. After another, absolutely unnecessary loss on the part of our team, the score became equal. Our players were unable to realize their attack, and the hosts earned free throws, after which they went ahead by two points. There were two seconds left until the end of the game and after a time-out Emil Rajkovic had a chance to at least transfer the game to overtime, but the ball never reached the goal, and “Astana” missed the victory in this game with a final score of 75:73.
Consequences: “Nizhny Novgorod”, although it remained on the sixth line, but strengthened its performance, but our team went down to the 12th line, and after the victory of “Kalev” over “Avtodor” a little later, “Astana” “entrenched” on the 12th location.
«Nizhny Novgorod» head coach — Zoran Lukic:
- Victory is victory. We deserved it by the second half of the game. The reason for the poor performance of my team in the first half lies in my decisions, which I took in the course of two quarters. I wanted the best, but it turned out as usual. Unfortunately, because of this, the team fell into a stupor, acted slowly. In the second half, we made adjustments and managed to raise the level of the game by fast rotation of the players. I think we pulled out with our character, we just pulled out this match. They clearly knew what they wanted and achieved their goal.
«Astana» head coach — Emil Rajkovic:
- Tough defeat, especially after having an excellent first half and had a 22 point lead. Unfortunately, we were unable to maintain the same level for the entire 40 minutes. The reason lies in the short rotation. Today we played without two imports, because we decided to give more playing time to local players who will remain in «Astana» for the next season. We will try to use them more often in the next matches, so that they gain experience in the VTB United League. They made good use of the time allotted to them, and I am proud of how Marchuk and Shcherbak competed today. However, in the end we lost concentration, we were unable to break the opponent's pressure on attack in the last minutes, and Nizhny caught us.
Next match: After returning to Nur-Sultan, the capital's basketball players will have to play on March 9 and 10 a two-match home series against «Barsy Atyrau» in the framework of the regular championship of the National League. The next rival of Emil Rajkovic's team in the VTB United League is «Tsmoki Minsk», which will meet on March 21 in the capital of Belarus.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
