Astana beat Zielona Gora in the home regular season game – 84:70 (27:18, 16:17, 26:13, 15:22).
The best scorers
Astana: Jaylen Barford (24 + 7 rebounds), Anthony Hickey (24 + 6 assists), Skylar Spencer (11 + 6 rebounds), Nikolay Bazhin (8 + 6 rebounds).
Zielona Gora: Nemanja Nenadic (14), Devoe Joseph (12), Andy Mazurcak (11 + 5 assists).
Game progress
Astana started the season with the win over Zenit, and then lost to Nizhny Novgorod in an equal game. Zielona Gora does not look so convincing yet, having lost to CSKA and UNICS. Already in the first minute Anthony Hickey organized a 6:0 run and allowed the Kazakhstan team to quickly seize the initiative. Led by Jaylen Barford and Hickey, the hosts successfully combined quick offencive possessions, a pass-through focus and 3-pointers, which they implemented five at once in the first quarter.
Everything was not going so smoothly for the Poles in the offence, but they endured and found a way to compensate for their mistakes. Zielona Gora coped better on the rebound and surpassed the opponent in second chance points. As a result, after an unsuccessful starting 10 minutes, the guests leveled the game in the second quarter and kept the chances of a successful outcome by the big break – 43:35 Astana lead.
🎯 @BarfordJaylen scored 16 PTS in 1st half vs Zielona Gora! pic.twitter.com/iiEFGbb4ah
— VTB League (@VTBUL) October 16, 2021
Shortly after the break, Astana staged a mini-run 6:0, and the guests managed to score the first points only after 3 minutes. Barford and Hickey continued to regularly scorre points and the hosts also managed to control rebounds. Left without offensive rebounds and second chance points, Zielona Gora scored only 13 points in the third quarter, allowing the opponent to shoot twice more.
Led with the score 69:48 after 30 minutes, Astana confidently brought the matter to win, which became the second for the Nur-Sultan team in the season. The Polish club has a 0-3 record so far.
Hero
Anthony Hickey. The American guard scored 24 points and 6 assists in 31 minutes with 27 eff. points. He also became the first minutes run creator, which gave Astana confidence.
No less good in the Kazakh team was Jaylen Barford, who collected almost same stats in 32 minutes – 24 points, 7 rebounds, 28 eff. points.
Numbers
4 – Zielona Gora could not win yet in Kazakhstan. Astana’s winning streak over the Poles at home is 4 games.
Comments
Darko Russo, Astana Head Coach:
– I should be happy that we won. But to be honest, I’m not 100 percent satisfied. Because the game was full of ups and downs. There were good and bad moments in the game. We made mistakes when playing defense in the 1st half, after the break we played better. In attack, they played a little slowly, as if they were dragging their time. We have to be much faster on offense, make quick decisions.
Oliver Vidin, Zielona Gora Head Coach:
– We started badly because of the large number of losses. This gave Astana confidence, and it pulled ahead. Then we got back into the game a little bit due to good defense, but our offensive play was unconvincing. Today we played without aggression and for a very long time we could not establish interaction in attack. And every time we made mistakes, Astana punished us, especially on the perimeter. We had an advantage in offensive rebounds, but a large number of losses nullified our efforts. We have a lot of work to improve the quality of the game.
What’s next
Astana: road game versus Avtodor On November 7
Zielena Gora: home game against Nizhny Novgorod on October 25
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