Basketball club Astana» started in the Cup of Kazakhstan 2022 with a confident victory over «Aktobe». Our team was a clear favorite in this game, and from the second quarter, Darko Russo's squad began to actively dominate the court. In the Cup matches, all teams, including our one, can only engage players with Kazakhstani passports.
The scoring in this match was opened by the Aktobe team, who ran ahead by five points from the start. Rustam Murzagaliev became the creator of the first effective attack, scoring two free throws, and then he was accurate from behind the arc and equalized the score. After a couple of accurate attempts from Nikolai Bazhin, the yellow-turquoise team took the lead, and in the middle of the first quarter, only Dmitry Gavrilov updated our score, earning six points in a row. The «Gryphons» were in the role of catching up, but at the same time, they were not very far from our guys. Ruslan Aitkali and Oleg Balashov supported our lead, but it continued to be insignificant. Rustam Murzagaliev was the last player in the first period to score points. “Astana” won the starting ten-minute period with a score of 15:21. In the second quarter, the team of Helen Shakirova had serious difficulties — a huge amount of missed throws and losses. Almost eight minutes of the second period were fruitless for «Aktobe». In the meantime, our team began to increase their handicap very quickly. Oleg Balashov, Rustam Murzagaliev, Nikolai Bazhin, and Maxim Marchuk scored more points. Closer to the middle of the period, our cap made two three-pointers in a row, and the advantage of “Astana” reached twenty points. After that, two three-pointers came from Vadim Shcherbak, 2 points from Ruslan Aitkali, and Andrey Litvinenko converted an and-one, after which the gap between the teams exceeded 30 points. Aytkali and Shcherbak scored one more time from behind the arc, but after that, almost two and a half minutes before the end of the half, our team did not score effective points. But during this time, «Aktobe '' was able to finally unlock our basket and scored nine points in a row. However, «Astana» confidently won the entire first half, more than twice ahead of its rivals — 24:52.
After returning from a long break, Vadim Shcherbak, Robert Pan and Nikolai Bazhin distinguished themselves in our roster, and our lead again reached thirty-five points. Until the middle of the third period, Nikolai Bazhin and Dmitry Gavrilov updated their scores, but the distance between the teams remained unchanged. In the second half of the third period, the players from the capital realized their attacks more often than the Aktobe team. Robert Pan, Andrey Litvinenko, and Dmitry Gavrilov scored points. And after two points from Vadim Shcherbak at the very end of the quarter, our gap finally reached the milestone of forty points — 31:72. Such a huge advantage has already ensured the victory of our team and «Aktobe» objectively had no chance to win back such a serious backlog. Our rivals tried to somehow aggravate the situation on the court in the fourth quarter, but for all their efforts, our team immediately responded with more points. Rustam Murzagaliyev and Ruslan Aitkali scored one more three-pointer, then Oleg Balashov was accurate in the drive, Vadim Shcherbak earned points from the free-throw line and the field. Closer to the middle of the fourth quarter, the advantage of the capital's team approached fifty points. In the last five minutes, Robert Pan became the main earner of points for our team — twice they were accurate from under the basket. Andrei Litvinenko earned three more points, and the final score was set by the same Robert Pan —
45:92.
Most scoring:
- «Astana» — Rustam Murzagaliyev became the most productive in our squad — 19 points, 2 interceptions. The most efficient were Vadim Shcherbak — 17 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and Robert Pan — 10 points, 16 rebounds. 10 points, 9 rebounds, and a block-shot for Dmitry Gavrilov, 11 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals for Ruslan Aitkali. The leader in assists and steals was Oleg Balashov — 6 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals. Andrey Litvinenko has 9 points. Nikolay Bazhin earned 8 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists.
- «Aktobe» — the only player among the opponents who scored a double-digit number of points — Vasily Petrishynets (10 points, 4 rebounds), Anton Ponomarev has 8 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists.
Consequences: «Astana» confidently started this Cup, winning the first match. In addition, «Barsy Atyrau» won their first victory in the tournament, having beaten «Kaspiy», and according to the results of the first game day, they are inferior to our team in terms of goal difference.
Next match: Aktau «Kaspiy» will become the second rival of the capital's team in the Cup of Kazakhstan, the meeting with which will take place on Sunday, February 6, beginning at 19:30 Nur-Sultan time, and before that «Barsy Atyrau» will meet with «Tobol». Online broadcast of the game will be available on the main page of our website and on the air of the Kazakhstan sports TV channel INSPORT.
Detailed information about the tournament, standings, schedule, and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
