The pre-New Year home meeting of the basketball club "Astana" with the leaders of the VTB United League - St. Petersburg "Zenith" was not easy. Emil Raikovich's charges made a rapid comeback from -20 in the third quarter and were one step away from revenge in the dramatic ending.

After the toss, the ball went to our rivals, but in their first attack they did not succeed, although our guys did not manage to open an account either. Moreover, the players of “Astana” were picking up fouls very quickly, so Emil Raikovich had to make a forced substitution, removing Martins Meyers from the court. The score was opened in the match only in the second minute of the meeting - after Meyers' foul, Arturas Gudaitis converted one of the free throws. The next effective attack had to wait even more than a minute, but this time our Oyars Silinsh distinguished himself, who brought “Astana” & nbsp; forward. In general, in the first five minutes, both teams had only ten points, four on account of “Astana” and six on the account of St. Petersburg. But if “Zenith” slowly took aim, then “Astana” stubbornly did not want the ball to fly into the rivals' ring. With a gap of almost ten points, just over three minutes before the end of the quarter, Nikolay Bazhin opened the scoring for long-range accurate hits. The final score on the basis of the starting ten-minute was set by Jeremiah Hill - 9:17 in favor of “Zenith”. Naturally, nine points in ten minutes was a very unsatisfactory result, but the opponents were not so effective either, and it is not surprising because both teams played from a blind defense. In the second quarter, the game pattern began to gradually become more dynamic, and our guys' business began to improve. Bazhin, Marble and Thompson distinguished themselves, thanks to their efforts the difference in the score was only 4 points. However, the St. Petersburg team of Krpeko grabbed the initiative and kept the advantage around 8 & nbsp; - 5 points for the next few minutes. “Astana” coped well with the role of catch-ups and achieved their goal three minutes before the end of the first half. Michael Thompson raised the floater, earning a free kick, and after his implementation the score became equal. The last minutes of the period passed even more dynamically. “Zenith” implemented their attacks, but immediately received a response from our players. The score became equal three more times, but the last attack was with the opponents, who converted it and were in the lead after twenty minutes of the game - 31:33.

If the first quarter turned out to be not so successful, and in the second “Astana” corrected the situation and there was a tough equal fight on the court, albeit not productive, but the third quarter became extremely unpleasant for our team. After the side change, Emil Raikovich's charges could not score points for a very long time. Only after more than four minutes Silins was accurate from the penalty line, but during this time “Zenith” fled from +2 to +14. At this point, we finally managed to solve the problem with implementation and for the next three minutes the difference in the score changed insignificantly, remaining in the region of 11-13 points. But the last two minutes of the period did not bring anything good, when the sight of the capital team began to fail again, and besides, the team made several unnecessary losses. Ten minutes before the end of the meeting, the situation was “sour” & nbsp; - minus twenty points, and in the game with “Zenith” it did not bode well. But as it turned out, it was too early to write off our team. Jeremiah Hill began the return of our team to the fight with an accurate three-man, he was supported by active actions by Nikolay Bazhin, Martins Meyers and Devin Marble. Less than three minutes after the beginning of the final quarter, the backlog of “Astana” was halved, and “Zenith” did not score a single point. But that was just the beginning of our comeback. Marble, Meyers and Hill once again distinguished themselves with effective attacks, and the difference in the score was only 4 points. Only a time-out on the initiative of the coaching staff of “Zenith” stopped the leap of the Kazakh team, and after it the opponent hit the target for the first time in the fourth quarter, by that time almost five minutes of playing time had passed. After that, the game leveled off, and “Zenith” clung to the remaining advantage and began to give effective counterattacks. The lag of “Astana” reached -3, but after a couple of attacks the team was already separated by 7 points. The courage that our players caught in the first half of the final quarter was knocked down by the rivals, and although the difference in the score was not very big, the time was not on our side. “Astana” could not put the squeeze on rivals and lost the victory in this match - 70:77.

Most productive:

• Astana - Martins Meyers today became the most productive and efficient in our team - 17 points, 7 rebounds. Devin Marble has 14 points. Jeremiah Hill has 10 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals. Michael Thompson, besides 8 points, also has 5 assists. Nikolay Bazhin became the best among Kazakhstanis - 9 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists.
• Zenit - today the main part of the work was taken over by the big St. Petersburg - Arturas Gudaitis and Will Thomas, only these two players were able to score more than ten points. Gudaitis has 18 points and 6 rebounds, and Thomas also has a double-double - 19 points and 12 rebounds.

Head coach of Astana - Emil Raikovich:
— Congratulations to Zenit on the victory. Our team had good moments, we managed to get back into the game, having won back a big advantage of Zenit. But at the end of the match we couldn't hold them back, especially Will Thomas. In addition, we were unable to convert our open three-point shots and our hit percentage from outside the arc was very low. Of course, it is impossible to beat a team of the level of Zenit with such a percentage, considering that he demonstrates a good game in the EuroLeague.

Zenit head coach - Xavi Pascual:
- We started the game well, but in the second quarter we lost our advantage. After a long break, the situation repeated itself. We didn't play badly, but at the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th quarters, we again lost control of what was happening on the court. But then we started playing with more dedication and won.

Next match: On the first Monday of the new year, on January 4, the capital's basketball players will host the Polish “Zelena Guru” in the VTB United League return match.

Detailed information & nbsp; about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published & nbsp; in the section Tournaments .

Source: www.pbcastana.kz