Basketball club «Astana» put an end to the clarification of relations with the «Almaty Legion» in the framework of the regular championship of the National League, inflicting another major defeat on the opponents.
In today's game, as well as in yesterday's, Robert Pan scored the first points, only today “Almaty Legion” almost immediately responded with a productive attack. Nevertheless, our team quickly seized control on the court and started confidently going into the lead. By the middle of the starting playing segment, the same Robert Pan brought the capital's handicap to a double-digit figure. However, Almaty team were able to respond and in two attacks they reduced their gap by half. “Astana” quickly stopped this, and in the penultimate minute of the first quarter Nikolay Bazhin again brought the lead to a double-digit figure, and the quarter ended with a score of 29:13. The beginning of the second quarter was less dynamic and effective — both teams couldn’t score points for almost three minutes, and Almaty players broke the goalless pause. “Astana” couldn’t score for almost a minute, until the moment when Vadim Shcherbak realized an accurate long-range throw, after that our guys got back on track and seized the initiative. In the penultimate minute, Robert Pan brought the difference in the score to twenty points, and he also scored the last points in the first half of the game, which resulted in 48:26.
After changing the sides, the game became less intense and the teams were on an equal footing. The advantage of the capital team for the first five minutes of the third period was about twenty points, but then our players made another small breakthrough. In general, the entire third quarter was quite effective in the performance of both teams, while it also ended in favor of our guys, but they added only five points to their advantage — 74:47. The outcome of this match was predictable even before the start of the game and 27 points difference for thirty minutes of play time only justified this prediction. “Astana” did not slow down and confidently moved towards victory. After one and a half minutes of the game in the final game segment, Ruslan Aitkali brought the capital's lead to thirty points. “Legion” tried to get the maximum possible out of this match and for most of the last ten minutes was in a decisive spirit, and our team was in a comfortable zone and went to the game's logical conclusion calmly. Our team stopped one step away from a hundred and won another big victory — 98:61.
Consequences: “Astana” has no problems in the National League and after 14 games 14 victories would confirm this fact, and “Almaty Legion” remains on the fourth line of the tournament table.
Most productive:
- «Astana» — in this game again, all our players who participated in the game, chalked down points on their account. Robert Pan became the best again, with 23 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 1 block shot. On account of Vadim Shcherbak there are 14 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 steals. Anton Ponomarev earned 8 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 3 block shots. Nikolay Bazhin has 13 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists and 1 block shot. Maxim Marchuk and Andrey Litvinenko scored 11 points each, Maxim added 5 more rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals, and Andrey added 2 assists and 3 steals.
- “Almaty Legion” — Daniil Severgin (15 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals) and Nikita Timofeev (13 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block shot) became the best in the camp of Almaty.
Next match: After returning to the capital from Shchuchinsk, «Astana» will immediately start preparing for the home match with «Avtodor» Saratov in the VTB United League, which will take place on January 31st. As for the National League, our team has a return away series against Aktobe on February 6 and 7.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
