The first home game of the basketball club «Astana» with the main competitors in the National League «Barsy Atyrau» ended with a confident victory of the capital team. Darko Russo chose Anthony Hickey and Skylar Spencer, and entrusted Anthony Hickey to start the game from the American players, along with Mark Tikhonenko, Dmitry Gavrilov, Maxim Marchuk, and Ruslan Aitkali.
Despite the success of our team in the jumping ball, they couldn't open the score immediately. Only closer to the end of the first minute of the game, Maxim Marchuk hit the opponents' basket. The guests were able to find their game and took the lead themselves, but after that, a goalless lull hung pursued. Meanwhile, our guys were very active and, most importantly, productive. Mark Tikhonenko made two accurate long-range precise shots, Ruslan Aitkali recorded a three-pointer, then Anthony Hickey made two attacks from an average distance, and after two points and a free throw from Nikolai Bazhin in the middle of the first period, Astana went 15 points ahead. The Atyrau team spent the rest of the starting ten-minute period more productively than the first five minutes, but our team had a good response to each of their realized attacks. Ruslan Aitkali scored three more points from a distance, and Anthony Hickey scored three points in one attack by scoring an and-one. Nikolai Bazhin scored twice from the penalty line, and at the end of the quarter, Hickey brought our lead closer to twenty points with two goals — 30:11. A successful and rich in points first quarter was replaced by a not so productive second. Our guests started it more actively, but then they got three points from Aitkali and two points from Tikhonenko and Hickey, thanks to which our lead still reached the top twenty. The middle of the period was left with the rivals, who took advantage of the ineffective pause of our players and slightly reduced the gap. Darko Rusoo had to take a timeout, after which Skylar Spencer scored his first points of the match. Our team was not very actively gaining points until the end of the first half of the game — three points from Hickey, two from Spencer, and one from Tikhonenko, but this was enough to keep a good advantage in our hands — 45:29, about the fact that the whole period was lost.
The start of the second half of the match turned out to be very successful for our team. The players from the capital did not allow the opponents to score points for more than four minutes, and in the meantime, they increased the lead to +25 points. Anthony Hickey, Skylar Spencer, and Ruslan Aitkali took part in this spurt. By the equator of the third quarter, the guests were able to open their account in the second half, but the equator itself was dominated by Spencer and Hickey, who scored 5 points for two. But in the remaining four minutes of the third period, only Anthony hit the target from the paint, and «Barsy Atyrau» managed to improve their position a little but lost 20 points before the final quarter — 62:42. One could say that «Astana» has already secured a victory in this match because in such a game it was hard to believe that the Atyrau team would be able to play twenty points back in the last ten minutes. Anthony Hickey, who gained courage, brought «Astana» seven points at the beginning of the fourth period, giving a personal response to the opponents' effective attacks. Nikolai Bazhin and Mark Tikhonenko earned another five points, thanks to which «Astana» removed even the smallest questions about their confident victory, winning 24 points five minutes before the end of the meeting. Anthony Hickey was not shy about scoring points and was accurate twice from the penalty line. Ruslan Aitkali brought our advantage very close to the mark of 30 points, and after two free throws from Bazhin, this milestone was finally overcome. The opponents disputed this a couple of times, but Aitkali returned our lead by thirty points and put an end to this game, which ended with a score of
88:57.
Most effective:
- «Astana» — Anthony Hickey played the most minutes today for both teams — almost 36 minutes and during this time scored 34 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals. Nikolai Bazhin chalked up a double-double — 10 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 blocks. Ruslan Aitkali scored 18 points, 4 rebounds, and 2 steals. Skylar Spencer was the hero of the match in block shots with 3 blocks and also scored 9 points and 6 rebounds, Mark Tikhonenko had 11 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists.
- «Barsy Atyrau» — Denis Vikentiev became the best among the opponents — 13 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1 block shot. Donte Lamont McGill and Andrey Rogozenko scored 14 points each.
Consequences: «Astana» still occupies the first line in the table, »Barsy Atyrau» are five victories behind our team.
Next match: The second match of the series with «Barsy Atyrau» will take place tomorrow, January 27, also in Nur-Sultan at the arena of the «Saryarka» cycle track. The match starts at 17:00 capital time. Online broadcast of the game will be available on the main page of our website.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule, and results of matches are published in the
Tournaments section.
