CSKA beat Astana at home – 84:65 (18:14, 26:16, 18:19, 22:16).
The best scorers
CSKA: Marius Grigonis (21 + 5 assists), Nikola Milutinov (14 + 9 rebounds), Alexey Shved (13 + 6 assists), Ivan Ukhov (13), Semen Antonov (11).
Astana: Anthony Hickey (26 + 7 assists + 6 rebounds), Antonio Campbell (11 + 6 rebounds), Oleg Balashov (11).
Game progress
The beginning of 2022 became difficult for CSKA: the Army team lost 2 games against their closest competitors – Zenit and UNICS – and dropped to the 4th place in the standings. Astana came to the game in the 10th place and with 6 losses in a row.
The first minutes of the game were equal, but a 9:2 run by CSKA helped them seize the lead. Nikola Milutinov became the hosts’ main offensive option. The Serbian center had already scored 6 points by the middle of the quarter and for the first time in the game marked a double-digit lead – 16:6. Astana was rehabilitated with tight defense – the guests did not allow to score points for 4 minutes. At the same time, the Antonio Campbell, Anthony Hickey and Maxim Marchuk actions in the offense allowed Astana to seriously reduce the gap – 14:18.
🛫 @Shved23 slams in fast break! pic.twitter.com/4oyKYFt6qQ
— VTB League (@VTBUL) February 13, 2022
At the beginning of the 2nd quarter, Marius Grigoris restored the Army team self-confidence. Coming off the bench, the Lithuanian guard scored 8 points in a row, and CSKA’s lead again reached 10 points. The guests rushed forward, but despite 4 3-pointers by Nikita Balashov and Mark Tikhonenko, they could not make big changes in the game. CSKA continued to score regurlarly, they finished the 1st half with a comfortable lead – 44:30.
In the 3rd quarter, CSKA continued to lead, despite Anthony Hickey and Antonio Campbell successful plays. The American duo scored 17 points in the quarter and reduced the gap to 5 points. But with Grigonis and Milutinov parformance, the Army Team entered the last quarter with the decent lead – 62:49.
The key moment
Astana made last attempt to come back at the beginning of the 4th quarter. Oleg Balashov and Anthony Hickey scored 2 three-pointers, but weak defense couldn’t let Astana to organize a comeback. CSKA players scored easy points over and over again, and after another shot made by Ivan Ukhov, the hosts’ lead became 20 points. The Army team had to calmly bring the game to win, and they did it – 84:65.
Hero
Marius Grigonis became the main offensive option in CSKA. The Lithuanian guard scored 21 points, got 5 assists and 23 eff. points.
Numbers
40 – Astana leader Anthony Hickey spent 40 minutes on the court. The guard didn’t rest during the whole game, becoming the best scoring player of the game – 26 points. However, even his enchanting game did not allow the guests to escape from a major loss.
Comments
Dimitris Itoudis, Head Coach:
– Congratulations to the team, we played mainly serious game. Obviously, that Astana’s mail power is its point guard [Hickey] who had another great performance, he played 40 minutes today, had 7 assists and almost 30 points, we did not find proper answer for him. But it gave us a chance to practice our defense, rotations, playing against isolation, where we switch, where we hedge. Evidently that we miss players due to injuries, due to rehabilitations that they go through. That serves a bit to our chemistry, we are here to work and face the reality.
Darko Russo, Astana Head Coach :
– Today we played against one of the best teams in Europe. The game was important for us, because we needed to test without our best player, to understand how we would play in the future, because there would be no more changes in the roster until the end of the season. CSKA never underestimates the opponent, they acted harshly against us, and we could not stop this aggression. They constantly played in contact and achieved victory. We lost by 19, but in general we played solidly. Nevertheless, I cannot be dissatisfied. We have a difficult schedule, there are games against Loko and UNICS ahead. It will be difficult, but we are not afraid, I teach the team to fight every opponent.
What’s next
CSKA: home game against Lokomotiv-Kuban on February 18.
Astana: home game versus Lokomotiv-Kuban on February 15.
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