Basketball club «Astana» competed well against CSKA in Moscow, but they could not beat their opponents. Darko Russo entrusted the start of the match to imports Anthony Hickey, Skylar Spencer, Antonio Campbell, Mark Tikhonenko, and Kazakhstani Maxim Marchuk.
The jumping ball remained with the players of the Kazakh team and Anthony Hickey opened the scoring in the first attack and put «Astana» ahead. In the next four minutes on offense, the Kazakh team did not achieve success, and the hosts ran ahead by seven points. In the middle of the period, Maksim Marchuk was accurate from the free-throw line, and Skylar Spencer achieved success from under the basket, but this did not save our team from a double-digit lag and Darko Russo had to take an early time-out. After it, our rivals slowed down their pace in the implementation, and in the last three minutes of the first quarter, points were updated exclusively by «Astana». Antonio Campbell scored the first three-pointer for our team, Anthony Hickey earned a couple more points, and Maxim Marchuk was also accurate from the paint. We could not catch up with our rivals, but we noticeably reduced the gap until the end of the period - 18:14. At the start of the second quarter, the opponents converted a three-pointer, but then Anthony Hickey scored twice in a row, and the difference between the teams was reduced to one exact three-pointer. CSKA again began to act more successfully in attack and defense, and their lead increased. Another minute break from our coaching staff helped us – the army team again achieved a double-digit advantage. In the middle of the period, Oleg Balashov was twice accurate from a distance, and after three points from Mark Tikhonenko, «Astana» was only five points behind. In the last three minutes of the first half, the Muscovites were more productive. Another three-pointer from Mark Tikhonenko did not save our team from another two-digit gap — 44:30. According to the statistics, it was clear that our rivals had overpassed «Astana» in scoring. In terms of the percentage of shots from an average distance, the hosts significantly outplayed our team. Also, Astana had four more losses and ten fewer rebounds, which resulted in a big difference in second-chance points, and points after losses were not not in our favor either.
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After switching sides, the teams exchanged effective attacks — an alley-up from Antonio Campbell and two points in the drive from Anthony Hickey. The difference remained in the region of fifteen points, but our long-range artillery paid off — Antonio Campbell and Anthony Hickey each sent the ball to the target from a long distance. And by the middle of the period, the backlog was reduced to five points. The hosts were able to stop our team from further breakthrough, and in the next couple of minutes, the difference was kept in the region of five to seven points. During this time, Skylar Spencer scored a couple more points, and Anthony Hickey converted one point. But at the end of the third period, CSKA earned six unanswered points and won thirteen points before the final quarter — 62:49. In the fourth quarter, things were not in our favor — CSKA approached the advantage of twenty points. Three-pointers from Oleg Balashov and Anthony Hickey returned the difference to eleven points, but in the middle of the period, the hosts still achieved twenty points of advantage. Anthony Hickey scored a couple more times, but three minutes before the end of the game everything was clear, and CSKA was in the lead by twenty-six points. At the end of the game, the Moscow team loosened its grip. Maxim Marchuk, Oleg Balashov also scored points in favor of our team, and Anthony Hickey scored twice. Our backlog was reduced, but in the end, “Astana” lost with a score of —
84:65.
Most scoring:
- CSKA — The base of the team played well for the army team and five players scored more than ten points. Marius Grigonis became the most productive, and Nikola Milutinov the most effective among the Muscovites.
- «Astana» — Anthony Hickey played the entire match today without substitutions, earning 26 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists, and 2 steals. Antonio Campbell scored 11 points and 6 rebounds. Oleg Balashov earned 11 points and 2 assists. And Maxim Marchuk chalked up 7 points and 4 rebounds.
CSKA head coach Dimitris Itoudis:
«Congratulations to the team. We played seriously. Astana's main strength is its point guard Hickey, who has shown another great game — we have not found a suitable response against his actions. But it allowed us to practice defense, rotation, and playing against isolations. We do not have enough players because of injuries, because of their rehabilitation. It helps our chemistry a bit and we are here to work and face reality.»
«Astana» head coach Darko Russo:
«Today we played against one of the best teams in Europe. The match was important for us because we had to test ourselves without our best player, to understand how we will play in the future. After all, there will be no more changes in the roster until the end of the season. CSKA never underestimated the opponent, they acted tough against us and we couldn't stop this offense. They constantly played contact and finished off by a victory. We lost «-19», but on the whole, we played solidly. However, I cannot be dissatisfied. We have a difficult schedule ahead of matches against «Loko» and UNICS. It will be difficult, but we are not afraid, I am teaching the team to fight with every opponent.»
Consequences: “Astana” remained on the tenth line, but “Tsmoki-Minsk” caught up with us in the main indicators and conceded only a line to us in additional indicators.
Next match: Our guys will play two home matches this week. On Tuesday, February 15, Krasnodar «Lokomotiv Kuban '' will be visiting the capital, starting at 19:00 capital time, tickets are on sale on the
Ticketon.kz website. Then on Thursday, February 17, Kazan UNICS will pay a return visit to the yellow-turquoise team, starting at 19:30 capital time, tickets are also on sale on the
Ticketon.kz website.
Detailed information about the tournament, standings, schedule, and match results are published in the Tournaments section.
