Nizhny Novgorod beat Astana in the regular season home game – 76:73 (16:22, 26:20, 22:13, 12:18).
The best scorers
Nizhny Novgorod: Rolands Freimanis (25 + 6 rebounds), Ivan Strebkov (15), Anton Astapkovich (11).
Astana: Jaylen Barford (32 + 5 rebounds), Anthony Hickey (18 + 8 rebounds + 6 assists), Skylar Spencer (9 + 12 rebounds).
Game progress
Nizhny Novgorod and Astana started the season with games against the favorites. But if the Russian team lost 20 points to CSKA at home, then the Nur-Sultan team presented the first sensation of the season beat Zenit in St. Petersburg. The Nur-Sultan club quickly showed that the result was not an accident: in the middle of the first quarter, the duo of Jaylen Barford – Anthony Hickey organized a 12-0 run, which brought the guests a significant advantage – 22:10.
Anton Kardanakhishvili helped to recover Nizhny, who scored 5 points at the end of the quarter. Rolands Freimanis played an even more significant role in the Nizhny team. The best sixth player of the last season in just a few minutes in his style made three long shots in a row and scored 11 points. The remaining time before the big break has already passed in an equal battle. Barford, who scored 21 points in the half, played solo for Astana, and Nizhny relied on team actions. In the last seconds of the second quarter, the opponents exchanged two shots after timeouts – 42:42
Who can stop @BarfordJaylen?
The @PBCAstana's guard scored 21 points in 1st Half vs Nizhny Novgorod 🎯 pic.twitter.com/vlu5jhLyzl
— VTB League (@VTBUL) October 10, 2021
After the break, Astana had difficulties due to the departure of proven leaders into the shadows, and Nizhny Novgorod once again found a new option in the offence. The third quarter hero was Ivan Strebkov, who shot 11 points with three shots from behind the arc. At the end of the quarter, the guests scored only 13 points, Nizhny got a double-digit advantage for the first time. The first minutes of the fourth quarter were marked by Barford – Hickey duo and Astana run 12:0. NN returned to the game after Dmitry Kulagin’s three-pointer, the duel smoothly moved to the end.
The key moment
The last minutes were spent in a viscous, ineffective struggle, each shot had of great importance. Nizhny Novgorod responded to Barford’s hits with two Freimanis shots in 44 seconds – 72:69. Soon Kulagin threw the difficult shot, then the hosts managed to protect the court, and in the next possession Freimanis, after Mikhail’s miss, took offencive rebound and realized two free-throws after tactical fouls – 76:71. Astana remained in the game until the very end, but there was too little time to comeback.
Hero
Rolands Freimanis. The Latvian helped Nizhny turn the tide of the game in the second quarter, and also became the hero of the ending when he scored key shots. He turned out to be the best in points (25) and rebounds (6) in Nizhny Novgorod squad.
Numbers
9 – Nizhny Novgorod winning streak now in games versus Astana.
Comments
Zoran Lukic, Nizhny Novgorod Head Coach:
– I want to congratulate our opponent on a more than decent game. This is the second game that they played at a very good level, and showed that it was no coincidence that they beat Zenit. For us, the only positive moment is the win. One bird is not spring, as they said. We still have a lot of work to do. Unfortunately, we lost another player – Anton Astapkovich has a broken arm, so he won’t be able to help us for more than a month.
Darko Russo, Astana Head Coach:
– First of all, I want to congratulate Nizhny Novgorod and my friend Zoran Lukic on the win. He has been doing an excellent job at this club for more than ten years. We came here to fight and, in my opinion, we fought pretty well throughout the game. In the first half, we allowed Nizhny to take 10 offencive rebounds, which did not allow us to take the lead by the big break, although we could have taken 5-10 points advantage. And in the last two minutes of the game, we made some bad team decisions. We had a two-point advantage, but instead of increasing it, we gave the initiative to the Nizhny.
What’s next
Nizhny Novgorod: home game against Kalev on October 16
Astana: home game versus Zielona Gora on October 16.
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