The first home game of «Astana» in the new year in the VTB United League has become a great treat for the fans of the capital's team. Our guys defeated «Loko Krasnodar» and snatched victory in the thriller ending.
The incredible performance of Anthony Hickey certainly deserves most of the praise in this game and of course our fans who missed the matches of their favorite team. After all, the last home game took place more than two months ago. «Lokomotiv Kuban» came to Nur-Sultan as a clear favorite, the bookmakers gave almost 5 odds for Astana to win, and Jaylen Barford also made his debut for the Krasnodar club in this game. But «Astana» proved that the bookmakers are not always right, and Anthony Hickey proved that Jaylen was not the main star of the Kazakh team.
«Astana» started quite confidently in this game, and the score in the match was opened by our cap — Rustam Murzagaliev — plus two. In the meantime, the guests could not get to our basket for a very long time and spent almost the first three minutes of the match without scoring points. In addition to Murzagaliyev, Anthony Hickey and Skylar Spencer scored points in our roster at the beginning of the game. Then Krasnodar was the first to realize a long-range attempt but immediately received two more points from Hickey in response. And yet, the middle of the first quarter remained with the Loko basketball players, who not only caught up but overtook the hosts. The next few game minutes were held in a tug-of-war format, the teams changed each other a couple of times as leaders. In our line-up during this period, Anthony Hickey scored six more points and Skylar Spencer recorded a couple more. The Kuban team managed to get ahead by a couple of effective attacks at the end of the first quarter, but points from Maxim Marchuk and Anthony Hickey did not allow the opponents to go far – 20:25. At the beginning of the second quarter, Antonio Campbell finally opened the scoring with long-range hits in this game for our team, while scoring two threes in a row, and again «Astana» took the lead. But the guests brought their attacks to the result and seized the lead once again. Skylar Spencer converted one free throw, followed by Anthony Hickey's three-pointer, and immediately equalized from the free-throw line. It was not possible to immediately take the lead, but Hickey again equalized the score. A little later, Maxim Marchuk brought our team forward with a three-pointer, and Oleg Balashov and Anthony Hickey supported the capital team's breakthrough. The difference in the score reached seven points and the opponents had to take a time-out, which paid off and in a minute and a half, the balance returned to the game. More than two minutes at the end of the first half, the teams could not score points, but Skylar Spencer broke this pause and again brought the hosts ahead. Nevertheless, the end of the second quarter remained with our rivals, who realized a couple of unanswered attacks — 44:46. Relative evenness in the score displayed approximately equal numbers in the statistics, although the overall effectiveness of the statistical indicators was on the side of the guests. But after two quarters, “our main trump card” – Anthony Hickey achieved to record numbers – 22 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists.
At the start of the third period, Loko's players immediately organized an accurate long-range shooting, but immediately received an equivalent response from Anthony Hickey. In such an equal game, each realized attack was as worth as gold, but for the next couple of minutes, the score on the scoreboard was not updated again. In the middle of the third period, Anthony Hickey was accurate from the paint, but a three-point response from his opponents was not long in coming. Mark Tikhonenko and his first three-pointer in the game came to the rescue, and Skylar Spencer narrowed the Kazakh gap down to one point. A minute later, Anthony Hickey and Antonio Campbell recorded one accurate long-range attempt each. Now «Astana» was leading by five points, and the Lokomotiv coaching staff was again forced to take a timeout. True, this time he did not immediately bring tangible results, and Anthony Hickey earned another five points. But more, before the final period, our players did not manage to score effective points, and the guests, although they did not make up for the lost time, lost only a couple of points before the final quarter — 66:64. A tough confrontation was expected in the fourth quarter, and the game didn't disappoint fans of dramatic endings. For starters, «Lokomotiv Kuban» quickly took the lead and our coaching staff had to take a timeout. Until the middle of the fourth quarter, the teams went neck to neck. During this time, Mark Tikhonenko brought “Astana” forward with a three-pointer, Anthony Hickey again led our team with another three-point shot, Antonio Campbell equalized the score, and after two points from Hickey and a dunk from Spencer, “Astana” again seized the initiative. Exactly before the equator of the quarter, Mark Tikhonenko made another long-range shot, and five minutes before the end we were in the lead by two points. The situation on the court escalated more and more, and the teams had already managed to exchange technical fouls earlier, and in the remaining time, the game acquired a tactical character. Guests leveled the score, but Antonio Campbell followed up with a very important three. The atmosphere was tense to the limit, which affected the players who made mistakes quite often. The teams managed to exchange only a couple of productive attacks from an average distance, while “Astana” continued to lead by three points when less than a minute remained before the end of the match. «Lokomotiv» made a couple of chaotic throws that did not bring results, and eighteen seconds before the final buzzer Skylar Spencer earned an unsportsmanlike foul, which increased our chances of winning at times. But everything didn't go according to plan. Skylar failed to realize a single attempt from the penalty line, and with the further withdrawal of the ball from behind the sideline, our players made a loss. The opponents had a real chance to move the game to overtime, they had to score three points and they earned three penalties in six seconds. If they had implemented them all, it would have most likely been overtime. But after the first miss, all Kazakhstani fans felt relieved. The second free throw also missed the target, and the third one was precise, but an important rebound was made by Skylar Spencer, who was immediately fouled. There were a couple of seconds left to play with a three-point difference, and to remove any remaining questions, Skylar needed to score at least one free throw in two attempts. He missed the first but was accurate in the second attempt, and «Astana» eventually won with a score of
87:83.
Most scoring:
- «Astana» — today's performance by Anthony Hickey has already entered the history of the VTB United League. Hickey became the seventh player in the entire history of the league to score a triple-double, and his triple-double was mostly effective. Anthony scored 43 points, which is the second result in the league in points scored per game, if you count matches without overtime, this is the first result in history. Anthony Hickey — 43 points, 10 rebounds, 11 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block shot. In addition, Anthony Hickey currently led the ratings in points per game and efficiency, and also remained the leader in assists and steals. Skylar Spencer did a great job with free throws today — two out of ten, but this is compensated by his excellent game — double-double — 12 points, 15 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block shot, and most importantly — the important free throw was accurate. It is worth noting that Skylar Spencer is currently the league leader in average rebounds and blocks per match. Antonio Campbell was very active from behind the arc but converted only 33% of his attempts, but he got into the most important moments of the match, scoring 14 points, 3 rebounds. Mark Tikhonenko also shot only from a distance today and was able to realize half of his attempts — 3, earning 9 points in the end.
- Lokomotiv Kuban — Eric McCollum became the most productive among the guests today — 17 points, while Alan Williams, Darius Thompson, and Jaylen Barford scored 11 points each.
Head coach of «Astana» — Darko Russo:
«I'm happy for our team because we had a lot of matches that we lost in the end. Today we controlled most of the game except for the end of the first half when «Loko» managed to go for a long break with a 2-point advantage. But after that, we gained our rhythm and played pretty well. Once again, I congratulate our team on the victory.»
Head coach of «Lokomotiv Kuban» — Branko Maksimovic:
«Today the opponent has surpassed us in details. We had a few long, unfortunate stretches during the game. Failed to maintain the required level of concentration and attention to detail throughout the entire 40 minutes.»
Next match: Our guys have practically no time for celebrating. They will only have one day to catch their breath before the next game. As early as Thursday, February 17, Kazan UNICS will pay a return visit to the yellow-turquoise team, beginning at 19:30 capital time, tickets are also on sale at
Ticketon.kz.
Detailed information about the tournament, standings, schedule, and match results are published in the Tournaments section.
