On January 11, MINSK played in Astana with the team of the same name as part of the VTB United League championship. In the second meeting of the season, the victory again remained for the opponent. The match ended with a score 77:48 (20:13, 18:5, 16:18, 23:12).
Starting five:
MINSK: Daniil Kasko, Benjamin-Pavel Dodoo, Aliaksei Trastsinetski, Vadzim Stubeda, Uladzislau Blizniuk.
Astana: Kwame Vaughn, Michael Myers, Valery Likhodey, Maksim Marchuk, Daniil Aksenov.
Game scenario
Daniil Kasko brought the first 2 points to our team, as Vlad Blizniuk got 2 more points in a quick breakaway. The opponents exchanged accurate shots in several attacks. Despite the fact that Astana took the position of the leaders of the site from the start of the first quarter, MINSK did not let Oleg Kiselyov's team go by a large margin: Zach Smith and Uladzislau Blizniuk scored accurate hits from an average distance. On the first break, the teams left with a score of 20:13.
Unfortunately, in the second quarter, the team lost the pace of the game, including due to pressure from the side “Astana”. Jovan Sljivancanin, Zach Smith and Aliaksei Trastsinetski were able to get points in the team standings. The teams went to the big break with a score of 38:18.
At the start of the third quarter, MINSK continued to be accompanied by numerous misses, and the opponent from Astana was able to increase the advantage on the scoreboard. Zach Smith and Benjamin-Pavel Dodoo made a 6:0 breakthrough in tandem, but this did not save them from a double-digit difference in the score by the end of the quarter (54:36).
Interchange
Unfortunately, the opponent's attitude did not allow our team to win today's meeting. Despite scoring shots by Zach Smith, Aliaksei Trastsinetski, Uladzislau Mikulski and Daniil Kasko in the final quarter, the match ended with a score of 77:48.
The most productive:
“MINSK”: Zach Smith – 12 + 7 REB + 1 AST + 1 STL, Uladzislau Blizniuk – 11 + 2 REB+ 1 AST + 2 STL.
Astana: Rustam Murzagaliyev – 14 + 1 REB, Michael Myers – 13 + 11 REB+ 1 AST + 2 STL.
MINSK head coach Rostislav Vergun: ”Congratulations to the opponent — they were very well prepared for today's match. In my opinion, we played very well, qualitatively, both in defense and in attack. The figures speak for themselves: the effectiveness of our actions for the whole team was 33 against 104 for the opponent. We managed to make 20 losses on 10 assists, missed a lot of free throws. Therefore, you should not count on any positive result with such a game.”
The team will play the next match on January 15 in Krasnodar against Lokomotiv-Kuban. The meeting starts at 17:00, the broadcast will be available on the website of the VTB United League and Belarus 5 Internet.