Astana played another away match in the VTB United League regular season. This time, the opponent was the current champion of the League, Zenit from St. Petersburg.
Although initially, the hosts seemed to be the favorites (especially considering that the Kazakhs arrived in St. Petersburg without several players from the main squad), the first quarter showed that not everything was already decided in the game. The ten-minute period ended with a minimal advantage of Javier Pascual's team — 22 :23.
The second quarter did not go well at all for Astana- the teams went to the break with a total score of 54:36. However, in the final two quarters, Oleg Kiselev's team again forced the hosts to fight, losing with a minimum difference (18:15 and 16:15), respectively.
The game ended with a score of 88:66 in favor of Zenit.
The leaders of the Kazakh club were Michael Myers (17 points, 11 rebounds), Daniil Aksenov (16 points, 6 rebounds), Oleg Balashov (10 points). Among hosts, Thomas Ertel became the best player (16 points, 6 assists, 4 steals).
«I want to congratulate our fans who came to support us. Thanks to the club management for organizing this match at the Zenit Basketball Academy. I know it wasn't easy. If we talk about the game, we controlled the course from the second quarter. We can't say that we played well, but at the same time, we can't say that we played badly. Now we just have to prepare for the next match,» Zenit head coach Javier Pascual said after the match.
On December 6-7, the « Astana « farm team will play two matches against IRBIS in Almaty, while the main team, under the leadership of Oleg Kiselev will play away at the MBA.
Detailed information about the tournament, standings, schedule, and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
