Darko Russo players earned the second victory in the Cup of Kazakhstan, beating «Kaspiy»

Basketball club «Astana» won the second victory in the Cup of Kazakhstan 2022, having outplayed «Kaspiy» in a big way. Our rivals were defeated by «Barsy Atyrau» the day before and the capital team was a clear favorite in the upcoming game. In the first half of the match it went into a fairly equal fight, then in the second half the wards of Darko Russo dominated the court and brought the game to a major victory. All teams, participating in the Cup including ours, can use only players with Kazakhstani passports on the court.

Our team started the game with productive long-range fire, three three-pointers in a row hit the target, two of which were on the account of Rustam Murzagaliyev, and Vadim Shcherbak made one accurate throw. During this time, the opponent earned two points. Nikolai Bazhin brought our advantage closer to a double-digit figure from the drive, but after that our performance decreased. «Kaspiy» gathered their strength and began to show an equal confrontation. Until the middle of the period, Oleg Balashov scored three points, and the advantage obtained at the beginning of the match remained the same. Then Vadim Shcherbak scored points in the drive and was accurate from the penalty line. Robert Pan also scored a couple of points from free throws, and for the first time, our lead was double-digit. But “Kaspiy” did not let our team go ahead and reduced the gap to seven points by the end of the period – 20:13. In the second ten-minute period, Rustam Murzagaliev made three free throws, and Dmitry Gavrilov earned two points. But our opponents were also successful in defense and responding to our attacks effectively. Until the equator of the quarter, only Rustam Murzagaliyev updated his score — two points in the drive and two points from the penalty line, but «Kaspiy» did not lag behind and after five minutes of the game in the second period our team was leading by only six points. Implemented attacks from Nikolai Bazhin and Robert Pan and our advantage again became two-digit, but despite two more points from Oleg Balashov, two minutes before the big break, the Aktau team retreated only five points. Ruslan Aitkali earned two points by the end of the first half, in addition, Nikolai Bazhin and Rustam Murzagaliev scored points from the free-throw line. «Astana» won the first half of the game, but our lead was not very comfortable — 40:32.



«Kaspiy» opened the scoring in the second half of the match, but in addition to these two points in the first five minutes of the third period, they scored only two more. But our team after the change of sides was gaining momentum. Dmitry Gavrilov scored six points in a row, Rustam Murzagaliyev earned three more points, and Maksim Marchuk first scored three-pointer, and then immediately added two more points. After the next points from Dmitry Gavrilov, our advantage exceeded twenty points. A minute later, and after points from Vadim Shcherbak and Oleg Balashov, the gap between the teams reached twenty-five points. “Kaspiy” broke a small goalless lull, but three points from Murzagaliev immediately arrived, and after four points in a row from Bazhin, “Astana” was in the lead by thirty points. The Aktau team was able to reduce the gap partially before the end of the third period, but the final score before the final quarter of Robert Pan was 70:45. No one had any special questions in our victory, but our team did not stop. Capital basketball players had a killer first five minutes of the fourth quarter, missing only three points from their opponents. During this time, Vadim Shcherbak, Dmitry Gavrilov, Maxim Marchuk, Oleg Balashov, and Ruslan Aitkali updated their accounts in our roster, and our advantage increased by fourteen points. After more points from Robert Pan and Maksim Marchuk, our gap broke through the milestone of forty points, and a little more than four minutes remained to play. Robert Pan and Ruslan Aitkali brought a few more points from the penalty line to our team. Well, in the last couple of minutes, Darko Russo released young players from the farm team who could not earn points, but even without this, «Astana» won a very big victory — 94:59.



Most scoring:

• «Astana» — Rustam Murzagaliev again became the most productive player — 20 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals. Vadim Shcherbak has 18 points, 4 rebounds, 1 block shot. Dmitry Gavrilov earned 13 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals. Robert Pan earned10 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 block shot to his credit. Nikolai Bazhin has 10 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals. And Maxim Marchuk, although he scored 9 points, became the most effective player in the match, adding 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 7 steals, and 1 block shot.
• «Kaspiy» — Konstantin Neff became the best among the opponents — 11 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists. Vladimir Kurochkin earned 12 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals.

Consequences: «Astana» strengthened in the fight for the main trophy of the tournament, winning the second match in a row, «Barsy Atyrau» also confidently continued to go through the tournament, which they also won today.
 
Next match: Tomorrow our guys will have a day off and an opportunity to take a breath before the decisive two matches, the first of which will take place on Tuesday, February 8 against Kostanay «Tobol», starting at 19:30 capital time. The online broadcast of the game will be available on the main page of our website and be on air on the Kazakh sports TV channel INSPORT.

Detailed information about the tournament, standings, schedule, and match results are published in the Tournaments section.