As at the very beginning of the National League season in Aktau, today the Presidential Basketball Club “Astana” in the first of two home matches did not leave a chance for “Kaspiy”.
Before the match, there was a minute of silence in memory of one of the greatest basketball players, who is the idol of several generations of basketball players. Great Master — Kobe Bryant will forever remain in our hearts.
Dusan Ristic and Stephen Holt were announced for today's match, but if you look ahead, neither the Serb player nor the American one entered the court. Emil Rajkovic started the game with Vadim Shcherbak, Rustam Murzagaliev, Alexander Zhigulin, Dmitriy Gavrilov and Maxim Marchuk.
Our rivals won the toss and in the first attack, they opened an account. After a series of mutual misses, Vadim Shcherbak opened a score for “Astana” with a three-pointer. The first minutes of the match went in a rather vicious, but equal fight. None of the teams managed to take the lead, and after five minutes the difference in the score was only 1 point. Over the next couple of minutes, the situation on the court did not change much, but in the last three minutes, the capital team had spent much more confidently than the rivals earning an advantage of 6 points as a result. In the second quarter, Rustam Murzagaliyev brought the gap between the teams to double-digit. But the next couple of minutes our team failed, while «Kaspiy», on the other hand, noticeably reduced the gap, bringing it to 4 points. But our players very quickly neutralized the threat and after another couple of minutes, the capital handicap became double-digit again. Two and a half minutes before the end of the second quarter, the difference was 15 points, and before the long break, Maxim Marchuk brought it to 20 points — 44:24.
The game of our rivals did not go well in the second half, while “Astana” gained an excellent pace, which the “Caspian” basketball players obviously could not cope with. Already at the equator of the third quarter, the capital squad was in the lead by three dozen points. Our guests gathered their thoughts a little and spent the second half of the quarter better, but they could not fully resist «Astana». After thirty minutes of play, all doubts about the victory of the capital's team disappeared: the capital team's advantage of 35 points spoke for itself. The fourth quarter was just a formality. Our guys had slowed down, but completely controlled what was happening on the court and continued to build up the advantage. At the end of the match, the game of “Kaspiy” went out of hand, and “Astana” confidently brought the game to a crushing victory — 93:46 (19:13, 25:11, 29:14, 20: 8).
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