Basketball club «Astana» is one step away from the regular season of the National League after another confident victory over «Barsy Atyrau». Today the guests could only repeat their yesterday's result, and our guys have noticeably improved. As in the game the day before, Emil Rajkovic released Ojars Silins, and Jeremiah Hill was replaced by Michael Thompson.
The first points in this match, as well as in the match the day before, were scored by Vadim Shcherbak, and then he also made an “and one” with a three-point throw. The Atyrau team scored their first points in the game only after almost two and a half minutes from the beginning of the game. Then Dmitry Gavrilov and Maksim Marchuk replenished our team's score, but the opponent also became more active, and in the middle of the period was only three points behind. Emil Rajkovic even had to take a time-out to slow down the rivals' pace. After that, “Astana” seized the initiative and began to increase their lead. The advantage very quickly became double-digit, and as a result, Michael Thompson set the final score in the starting period — 29:13. In the first half of the second period, points for our team were scored by Maidekin, Murzagaliev, Ponomarev, and Bazhin. But “Barsy Atyrau” effectively parried each of our attacks. The opponents happened to slow down in the last five minutes of the first half, when the green-whites were able to score only one point. Our team, on the other hand, attacked quite confidently. Rustam Murzagaliev and Askar Maidekin scored the points. And Michael Thompson scored 10 points in less than five minutes, thanks to which “Astana” won 30 points after two quarters — 54:24.
After switching sides for more than two minutes, the teams could not hit the net, and Michael Thompson was the first to make his attempt. The effective pace of our team slowed down after a long break, but control in the match remained in the hands of our players. Dmitry Gavrilov and Michael Thompson scored points in these ten minutes, and Rustam Murzagaliev and Vadim Shcherbak also gained one point each. The difference in the score practically did not change, and as a result, the very comfortable thirty points of Astana's advantage remained and were replenished with one more point. Such a wide gap determined the outcome of the game with 99% accuracy, and it was with great difficulty tone could imagine that in ten minutes “Barsy Atyrau” would be able to catch up. The last ten minutes passed quite the same as the third quarter. The teams were on an equal footing, and the difference was kept in the region of thirty points and did not change much. Basically, Nikolay Bazhin scored points for our team in the last ten minutes, and Askar Maidekin chalked up 10 points for the period. As a result, “Astana” won a big and confident victory with a score of 88:56.
Consequences: “Astana” 100% secured first place in the regular season and it remains to win the last two matches in order to complete the regular season undefeated. “Barsy Atyrau” occupies the second line.
Most productive:
- «Astana» — Michael Thompson became the most effective and efficient player of the entire match, gaining 20 points, 6 rebounds, and 7 assists. Askar Maidekin earned a double-double — 18 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 assists. Dmitry Gavrilov has 10 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 block shots. Nikolay Bazhin scored 10 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists. Rustam Murzagaliev has 12 points, and Vadim Shcherbak has 11 points.
- «Barsy Atyrau» — Edward Carter III scored 13 points, made 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals in this match. Askar Akhmetzhan earned 7 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 steals.
Next match: then “Astana” will go to Shchuchinsk for the Kazakhstan Cup 2021, where it will play in group “A”, first with “Aktobe” on March 12, and then with “Tobol” on March 13. The final part of the tournament will take place on March 15 and 16.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
