Basketball club «Astana» held a second home meeting against «Tobol». Today the Metropolitan team once again dominated throughout the match and chalked up their eighth win of the season. The coaching staff, led by Darko Russo, opted for Jelena Burford and Antonio Campbell from the American legionnaires in this game. Together with Mark Tikhonenko, Rustam Murzagaliev and Maxim Marchuk, they started this match.
The starting toss was up to our rivals and it was they who opened the scoring in the game. In the first minutes of the meeting, there was a relatively equal game, “Astana” quickly seized the lead, kept ahead, and Kostanay played the role of catching up and did not let our guys go far into the lead. In the first five minutes, Jaelen Burford, Maxim Marchuk, Rustam Murzagaliev, Antonio Campbell and Oleg Balashov opened their personal scores in the match. After the equator of the first quarter and after the next points from Burford and Marchuk, our team broke away a little, but “Tobol” fought back as best they could, and their gap was not great. In the last minutes of the first period Dmitry Gavrilov earned one point and Ruslan Aitkali scored twice, who established the final score of the first ten minutes — 22:16. In the second quarter, the scales tilted strongly towards the yellow-turquoise ones. The pace of our team's game has increased dramatically. Mark Tikhonenko started with an accurate three, Oleg Balashov converted a pass, and Antonio Campbell scored an end one, Burford made an attempt from behind the arc, and in the quarter a couple of minutes had not yet passed. “Astana” continued to send the ball to the target very actively, Burford, Balashov, Tikhonenko and Campbell earned two points each, and the capital's team's advantage reached 20 points. In the middle of the period, Campbell and Tikhonenko distinguished themselves with accurate three. By the way, the five points that our opponents earned in the first three minutes were their only points since the beginning of the playing segment. The next one and a half minutes were left without points for both teams, and then “Astana” again began to actively increase its lead. Rustam Murzagaliev was accurate once from the penalty line, and after two successful attacks by Maxim Marchuk “Astana” was already in the lead by more than 30 points. In the last minute and a half of the first half of the match, the opponents scored two points, but Ruslan Aitkali answered them with his eight — 60:23.
After the changeover, our guys actively rushed into battle — in the first minutes of the third period, points were scored by Robert Pan, Jaylen Burford and Dmitry Gavrilov, and the capital's handicap exceeded 40 points. “Tobol” did not agree with this alignment and with all his might tried to avoid an even greater lag and the next couple of minutes the difference jumped around 40 points. During this time, Pan, Balashov and Barford fueled our score with points. In the middle of the period, the handicap of the capital's team finally consolidated beyond forty points and the points gained from Tikhonenko, Murzagaliev, Aitkali and Marchuk contributed to this. In the remaining time of the third period Ruslan Aitkali earned 4 points, Nikolay Bazhin also opened his score in the match, and our advantage has already approached fifty kopecks — 92:44. The outcome of the match was already a foregone conclusion, and the fact that “Astana” would once again break through the line of one hundred points was also obvious, it only remained to find out the final score. Darko Russo's charges did not start as actively in the fourth quarter, but much better than their rivals, who did not score a single point in five minutes. Rustam Murzagaliev converted a couple of free throws, Mark Tikhonenko was accurate from beyond the arc, and Dmitry Gavrilov from paint. Gavrilov, closer to the equator of the fourth period, brought the score of the capital's team to 100 points from the penalty line. The rest of the match was also not the most productive, but our players continued to replenish their personal accounts. Mark Tikhonenko put another three-point shot on target, Robert Pan brought Astana's advantage to 60 points, he and Oleg Balashov worked from the penalty line and Ruslan Aitkali and Robert Pan scored two points at the end of the game. The final score of the meeting is
112:49.
Most productive:
- «Astana» — Ruslan Aitkali today played the most in our team — almost thirty seconds, and during this time became the most productive in our team — 21 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals. Mark Tikhonenko also spent almost thirty points on the court and scored 17 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists. Jaylen Burford scored 15 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals in this game. Rustam Murzagaliev chalked up 12 points, 7 assists and 3 steals. Four players at once in our team scored 10 points. Antonio Campbell, who scored 2 more rebounds, 2 steals and 2 block shots. Maxim Marchuk with 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 steals. Robert Pan with 6 rebounds and 3 steals. And Oleg Balashov also scored 10 points and added 4 assists to this.
- «Tobol» — the best among the opponents today was Anton Bykov — 23 points, 14 rebounds and 2 interceptions. Shaim Kuanov today earned 8 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals.
Consequences: “Astana”, without defeats, is noticeably ahead of its closest rivals in the standings, and “Tobol” has noticeably worsened its position in the tournament.
Next games: »Astana» will now play in the VTB United League in Perm against the local team «PARMA-Parimatch» on December 19, and in the National League the next opponent will be «Aktobe», which will play in Nur-Sultan on December 23 and 24.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule, and results of matches are published in the
Tournaments section.
