“Astana” defeated the Russian “Nizhny Novgorod” at home - 93:84 (31:28, 17:15, 25:20, 20:21).

The hosts held the advantage throughout the match, winning three 10-minute periods out of four, and in the third quarter the advantage became double-digit - 73:63. In the final period of the game, Nizhny tried to close the gap, but the inspired play of Usman Kruballi repeatedly negated all the guests' attempts to come back, and after Anton Ponomarev's hit, the difference became almost insurmountable - 85:70 four minutes before the final whistle. “Astana”, having won, became even more determined in the pursuit of the top five.

The most successful:

“Astana”: Robert Lowry (18), Roderick Odom (15+5 rebounds), Usman Kruballi (14+8 assists), Rustam Murzagaliev (12), Ian Miller (10+5 assists)

Nizhny Novgorod: Ivan Strebkov (20+7 rebounds+8 assists), Kenny Boynton (15+5 assists), Maxim Grigoriev (12), Tomislav Zubcic (11), Siim-Sander Vene (10), DeAndre Kane (10 )

Astana head coach Ilias Papatheodorou:

- First of all, I congratulate everyone on the past New Year holidays! This is an important victory for us. Nizhny came to us after one great game against Zenit in the Eurocup. And Nizhny is very strong in attack. We didn’t have game practice for almost 20 days. In the second quarter we found our rhythm and were eventually able to win.

Nizhny Novgorod head coach Arturs Shtalbergs:

- Congratulations to Astana on a good offensive game. The opponent scored a lot of difficult goals, but that's no excuse. We still lived in some kind of euphoria, although it seemed that after the game with Zenit we had already returned to earth... But if we miss 10 free throws, and Astana dominates on the boards, then this shows that we were not ready for this playing properly, there was no concentration.

“Astana” will also play the next match on its own court; on January 11 and 12, the capital team will host the “Caspiy” team from Aktau as part of the National League of Kazakhstan.

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