Having boldly started the home match against «Avtodor» Saratov with an advantage of +10 in the first quarter, basketball club «Astana» allowed the opponents to catch up and seize the initiative in the second half of the match.
The jump ball went to our team, and in the very first attack Martins Meyers opened the scoring. The guests' response was not long in coming, and «Avtodor» took the lead. Then Adonis Thomas scored the first three-pointer in this game and brought “Astana” forward. In general, in the first five minutes of the game, almost all points for our team were scored by Adonis, plus Robert Pan scored an accurate three-pointer. By the middle of the starting quarter Saratov were 6 points behind, and after a series of successful attacks performed by Nikolay Bazhin and Michael Thompson, the difference in the score became double-digit. The guests did their best to reduce the gap and at some point they succeeded. However, Avtodor's comeback was countered by Devin Marble, who actively chalked up points in the second half of the period. At the end of the quarter, Michael Thompson again distinguished himself with an accurate throw from the paint and again made the advantage of “Astana” double-digit — 29:19. In the second period, Devin Marble continued to maintain the advantage of our team in the area of ten points, and the captain — Rustam Murzagaliyev with his three-pointer started a small spurt, which allowed us to break away from the rivals by 17 points. In the middle of the second quarter, there was an unpleasant incident with the participation of Martins Meyers, who socred the ball into the opponents' ring with a dunk, but at the same time played inaccurately in the offense. Not only did our player’s points not count, but he also received an unsportsmanlike foul, and in addition to this, the referees issued a technical foul to our team. Thus, the guests got the right to shoot three free throws and after that the possession remained with them. They got the most out of this moment and the difference between the teams was reduced to 10 points. After a couple of minutes, the Saratov team's lag was already reduced to 6 points. Until the end of the first half of the match, points were scored by Martins Meyers and Jeremiah Hill, but our team failed to return the double-digit advantage. The final score of the first half was set by Dmitry Gavrilov — 48:41.
Michael Thompson opened the second half with another accurate long-range attack and once again created a double-digit lead for his team. This did not bother Avtodor and the Saratov team began to impose their game, and after two and a half minutes of the game in the third quarter the score was equal. Naturally, this did not suit our coaching staff and Emil Rajkovic took a break to slow down the pace of his opponents and adjust the game of his players. The entire the third period went in bitter struggle for the initiative and the teams replaced each other several times as leaders, and the score became equal several times. Devin Marble, two minutes before the end of the quarter, once again leveled the score, but as it turned out, these were the last points scored by our team in this ten-minute period, and the Saratov team, meanwhile, recorded 7 more points. It was with such a lag that “Astana” came to the beginning of the fourth quarter — 59:66, and the third one proved to be extremely unsuccessful. 7 points of advantage turned into 7 points of lag. The fight in the fourth quarter became even more intense. After the points of Marble and Thomas, the gap was only five points, but Avtodor clung to its fragile advantage and did not let «Astana» to catch up. In the middle of the period, after Michael Thompson's successful free throws, which reduced the gap to 6 points, the Saratov coaching staff took advantage of the right to a one-minute break. This time-out was good for them and after a couple of minutes they won more than 10 points. There was not much time left to rectify the situation, but it was aggravated by the fact that a few minutes before the end of the match Martins Meyers received a foul, which became his fifth, and he left the court. The last intrigue in the match was brought by Michael Thompson, who reduced the difference to 7 points one and a half minutes before the final buzzer, but Avtodor did its best to avoid a difficult ending. The last minute of the match was very eventful. At its start, the score difference was 10 points, but our team made every effort. With 9 seconds left, Adonis Thomas brought the gap to four points, but there was very little time left. After the last time-out, the players of “Astana” failed to realize everything that Emil Rajkovic planned for them and missed a very important victory — 83:92.
Consequences: Both teams retained their positions in the standings, «Avtodor» is seventh, and «Astana» is tenth, but at the same time our team is even further from the playoff zone.
Most productive:
- «Astana» — Michael Thompson recorded 20 points, 3 rebounds, 9 assists and 2 steals, Devin Marble — 19 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 steals. Adonis Thomas had 15 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists, and today Martins Meyers got 10 points, 6 rebounds and 2 assists.
- «Avtodor» - scored a double-double with Zeljko Sakic — 20 points and 11 rebounds, Evgeny Minchenko scored 19 points, while Nate Mason and Nikita Mikhailovsky each had 17 points.
Head coach of «Astana» — Emil Rajkovic:
- Congratulations to «Avtodor» on the victory — our opponent played better today, especially in the second half. We started the first half well, but after that we had problems with the number of fouls. Ojars Silins could not play today, which is why Zeljko Sakic gave us a lot of grief. I believe that was the main reason why we lost today.»
Head coach of «Avtodor» — Gordy Herbert:
- I am very proud of my players. We have faced a lot of difficulties over the past week. Some players were sick and could not continue practicing. It took us 30 hours to get to Nur-Sultan. Despite all this, we managed to achieve an important victory. Congratulations to our team for an excellent result and performance, especially in the last 25 minutes.
Next match: »Astana» basketball players will continue to receive guests as part of the VTB United League; Krasnoyarsk «Enisey» will arrive in Nur-Sultan
on February 4, and our guys will spend the first weekend of February in Aktobe, where they will meet twice with the local team of the same name already in the framework of National League.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
