«Astana» started another home series in the VTB United League with a historic victory: the capital club defeated «Samara» for the first time, which debuted in the tournament last year.
Oleg Kiselev's team managed to win each of the quarters, but the most defining was the third one – if by the beginning of the second half, «Astana» led by only 5 points, by the start of the final stretch, the Kazakh club was leading with a margin of +16. After an almost equal last quarter, the final score on the scoreboard was 83:66.
The real hero of the match was Carvel Anderson, who scored 28 points for the second consecutive game and made 7 three-pointers. Also notable were Royce Hamm (14 points, 7 rebounds), Marcell Johnson (11 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals), and Devin Davis (11 points, 9 rebounds). It is worth mentioning that Royce and Devin delighted the fans with a beautiful alley-oop.
«Congratulations to «Astana» on the victory! Today, they were the better team. In the first half, we tried to keep the score gap minimal, but we had problems, especially in attack, lacking ideas, while through defensive play, we tried to restrain the opponent. In the third quarter, on the contrary, we lost 24 points without any control, which was a big disappointment. We couldn't demonstrate a strong fighting spirit in this game,» said «Samara» head coach Dražen Anzulovich after the match.
At halftime, «Astana» center Dmitry Gavrilov, who turned 37, received a cake specially made for him from the fans to applause.
On November 30 and December 3, «Astana» will play home matches with Moscow «Runa» and CSKA, respectively. Tickets are already available on Ticketon and «Davai Poidem!»
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