The Presidential Basketball Club “Astana” continues its basketball “tourney” as part of the training camp in Lithuania. The capital team held its third friendly game with lithuanian “Neptunas”.
After Prenai and Palanga, where our basketball players had two friendly matches with the teams “CBet” and “Khimki”, respectively, they went to the glorious city of Klaipeda, to have a friendly game with the local club “Neptunas”. Last season, “Neptunas” became the leader of the Lithuanian League regular season and effortlessly overcame the quarter final stage, but were locked in the semifinals, and eventually won a series of games for third place and won bronze medals of LKL. “Neptunas” also participated in the FIBA Champions League last season, where they advanced the group stage but finished their performance after the 1/8 finals. It is worth mentioning that in the 2013/2014 season the Lithuanian club participated in the VTB United League and played with “Astana” twice. In that season, the Kazakh team lost to the Lithuanians at home, but won in an away game. The last match of these teams took place in the framework of the Garastas Cup 2015, then the victory remained with lithuanian club.
BC “Neptunas” had a slight advantage, as they played at home. The hosts from the very beginning of the game took a lead, but “Astana” kept very close and did not allow the rivals to make a large margin. This happened in the first quarter, and continued throughout the second quarter. Although it was an equal fight, the Lithuanians retained their leadership by 7 points. The third quarter, in fact, was a repetition of the second one, the teams conducted it on equal course, and the host preserved their advantage in the final quarter. In the fourth quarter, Kazakhs picked up the pace and began to recoup their backlog, and as a result, by the end of the match there was a tie. As it was a friendly match, it ended in a friendly draw — 79:79 (28:21, 21:21, 19:19, 11:18).
Despite the fact that it was a friendly game, “Astana” for the first time in its history chalked up a basketball draw. Namesakes Hills became the leaders of BC “Astana” in this game: Malcolm scored 27 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 1 blockshot; Jeremiah recorded 21 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 1 block shot to add to his stat line. Another rookie of BC “Astana” Serbian Dusan Ristic earned another double-double — 11 points, 12 rebounds.
Schedule and results of pre-season friendly matches of PBC Astana:
- September 7 — BC «CBet» - 74:75
- September 9 — BC «Khimki» - 88:81
- September 12 — BC «Neptunas» - 79:79
- September 14 — BC «Liepaja» - 73:107
- September 17 — BC «Lietuvos-Rytas» - 100:76
- September 19 — BC «Avtodor» — 106:83
- September 24 — BC «VEF»
- September 28 — BC «Kuršiai»
* Game schedule is a subject of change.
