Basketball club “Astana”, having won the first match of the away series with “Almaty Legion”, was the favourite in the second game as well. Almaty players were determined to take revenge, but as they say, it's harder to do than say, especially since our team played only to win. In the second match, the coaching staff of “Astana”, together with the Kazakh players, released Michael Thompson and Jeremiah Hill to the court.
In this game, in the first attack, our guys were unable to score points, but the hosts successfully implemented a counterattack and opened the score in the match. Nikolay Bazhin scored the first points for our team, sending two free throws right on target. “Almaty Legion” confidently started the match and kept ahead for the first time, responding in time to the effective attacks of our players. Towards the middle of the first quarter, “Astana” once again equalled the score through the efforts of Nikolay Bazhin, and a few seconds later Dmitry Gavrilov, for the first time since the beginning of the meeting, brought our team forward. “Legion” also did not slow down and by the seventh minute of the game again made the score equal on the scoreboard. Penalties by Askar Maidekin put our team in the lead again, but the hosts managed to catch up once again. Until the end of the first period, Jeremiah Hill realized a couple of attacks, but the Almaty team also scored points. The final score in the quarter was set by Anton Ponomarev — 19:23 in favour of “Astana”. At the start of the second period, the game was about the same as in the opening period — in a bitter struggle. Jeremiah Hill for the first time in this game brought the score difference to six points, but the hosts did not give up and showed intense resistance. From the middle to the end of the quarter, our guys had a good segment of the game. Points by Maxim Marchuk and Dmitry Gavrilov became the basis for the already comfortable ten-point lead. However, our double-digit advantage did not last long, and the result of the first half was 35:44 in favour of Emil Rajkovic's team.
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“Almaty Legion” imposed a competitive struggle on the capital's squad in the first half of the match and was not going to stop after a fifteen-minute break. In the third quarter, the hosts immediately realized two attacks, thanks to which their backlog was reduced to five points. “Astana” was able to stop the leap of Almaty residents and again went forward. Our attacks were successfully completed by Robert Pan and Dmitry Gavrilov, and Michael Thompson scored seven points in three minutes and brought the capital's handicap to fourteen points. “Almaty Legion” prepared its response to “Astana». In a few minutes, the difference was reduced to six points, but the last word in this period remained with the capital team, which ended the period with several unanswered effective attacks and won fourteen points before the final quarter — 51:65. the game the day before had approximately the same course when in the last quarter “Astana” completely seized control of what was happening on the court and brought the match to a confident victory. Today Almaty team did not lose so much in the last ten minutes, but the keyword here is “lost”. “Legionnaires” could not cope with the tempo imposed on them by our team, which gradually increased their lead. Michael Thompson was very active and most importantly productive, after his next scored points, the advantage of “Astana” exceeded twenty. When there were less than five minutes left to play, and our victory was very far ahead. As a result, “Astana” achieved another confident victory in Almaty — 66:90, and took away four tournament points from the Southern capital following the results of two games.
Most productive:
- “Astana” — in this game, due to an injury received in the last match, the captain, Rustam Murzagaliev, did not participate, and all the other players of the team were effective. Michael Thompson scored the most points for “Astana” — 19, and also made 4 rebounds and assists. Nikolay Bazhin chalked up a double-double — 10 points and 10 rebounds. Jeremiah Hill has 15 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists. Dmitry Gavrilov scored 10 points and 4 rebounds.
- «Almaty Legion» — a powerful double-double scored by Dmitry Sviridov — 20 points and 18 rebounds, and the Russians Roman Lagutin and Sergey Marikhin scored 12 points.
Consequences: “Astana” added two more points to the standings and go through the season without defeat continues. “Almaty Legion” is one point behind “Barsy Atyrau”, who won their game today and occupy the second position.
Next match: from Almaty, our guys will go home to prepare for the next trip within the VTB United League, and their first stop will take place in Poland, where on December 14 they will meet with «Zielona Gora». The next rival of the capital's basketball players in the National League is Kostanay “Tobol”, the first game series of the season with which will be held in Nur-Sultan on December 20-21.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
