Astana beat Lokomotiv-Kuban in Kazakhstan – 90:88 (21:25, 21:29, 25:16, 23:18).
Top Scorers
Astana: Coty Clarke (26 + 6 rebounds), Malcolm Hill (24 + 7 assists), Dusan Ristic (21 + 9 rebounds), Jeremiah Hill (5 + 5 rebounds + 15 assists).
Lokomotiv-Kuban: Will Cummings (16), Sam Dekker (14), Dmitriy Kulagin (13 + 5 assists), Johnny O’Bryant (13 + 6 rebounds).
Story
The beginning of the game was fun to see because of Coty Clarke and just recovered Will Cummings match up. Astana’s forward scored first 9 points and 14 of 21 team’s first quarter points, and Lokomotiv player answered with 7 points in a first few minutes. However, Clarke’s efforts didn’t help his team to take the lead. Krasnodar were more balanced and had more team chemistry. As they took 4-point lead in the first quarter (25:21) they increased their lead in the second while American player slowed down. Statistics shows the difference: 20 Lokomotiv’s bench points vs 2 Astana’s. Furthermore, field goal percentage (57% by Loko, 32% by Nur-Sultan). After 2 quarters Krasnodar were up by 11 (53:42)
After the halfbreak Astana seized the initiative. They were inspired by 2 long-range shots by Hills (Jeremiah and Malcolm) and Kulagin’s turnover (50:56). Then the frontcourt – Aleksandr Zhigulin and Dusan Ristic made an impact. Before the beginning of the final quarter the hosts were losing (67:70).
Sam Dekker, Kulagin and Fridzon made another run for Loko (77:67) after the fourth quarter had started. But Astana showed their team spirit again. Kazakhstan pulled themselves together organized good defence and via Zhugulin’s shots and Ristic’s three made the game to the clutch (80:83).
Key moment
Kulagin decided to take ball in his hands in clutch, but missed two times, Zhigulin and Clarke finally gave their team a lead – 90:86 one minute before the buzzer. Lokomotiv cut the lead via Cummings furious drive to the basket and then Dekker showed his level. Forward successfully guarded Clarke in isolation and sent Kulagin into the fastbreak, where he was fouled with 16 seconds left.
Dmitriy missed both free throws but Krasnodar saved the opportunity to win by collecting offensive rebound. During key-possesion Red-Greens’ vice-captain passed the ball to Cummings for the open three but he missed it. First win in the season for Astana!
Nur-sultan brought us another sensation just like they did in previous seson beating Lokomotiv in Krasnodar.
Stat
88 – the amount of points scored by Astana’s starting line-up. The whole team scored 90.
Record
Astana’s point guard Jeremiah Hill collected 15 assists and that’s a season high! D.J. Cooper set the League’s record with 23 assists.
Hero
Malcolm Hill. Astana’s foreign roster completely changed this off-season, but new heroes came. Malcolm was the number one option tonight – 24 points, 4/6 threes (the rest of the team hit 3 threes) and 7 assists.
Comments
Astana’s head coach Emil Rajkovikj:
-It was a tough game because the roster isn’t at its best yet. Loko have a long bench and nice role players. It was really hard to compete with them with such a short bench, but we won because we started to play aggresively on defence and because of fans that inspired us and gave the energy in the clutch!
Lokomotiv-Kuban’s head coach Luca Banchi:
-Congratulations to Astana. We had 12-point lead before the halftime but then let out opponents to get back into the game. Unfortunately, we didn’t showed concentration when we had to and lost the control over the game.
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