Dubai Basketball Suffer First Home Defeat of the Season in EuroLeague Round 4

2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Dubai Basketball Suffer First Home Defeat of the Season in EuroLeague Round 4

2026-10-08T23:25+04:00

On a tough night at Coca-Cola Arena, Dubai Basketball went down 58-77 to Red Star Belgrade in EuroLeague Round 4.

The first quarter swung back and forth, with Dubai jumping out to a 9-2 lead thanks to a quick seven points from forward Dwayne Bacon. The visitors fought back with their own 12-2 run to take an 11-14 lead before Dubai went on a 10-2 run (including six points from Shengelia) to wrestle back control and go into the first break up 21-16.

But from there it was Red Star's night. They opened the second quarter with a 13-2 burst, and a 14-2 streak either side of half time built a fourteen point cushion that Dubai were never able to fully overcome. The home side were hanging on and still in the game with six minutes left in the fourth quarter, but frustrations got the better of the home team, gifting the Belgrade team a number of trips to the free throw line and allowing them to go on a 14-0 run that put the result beyond doubt. Shengelia scored the last four points of the game to bring the margin under twenty, but this was still a night to forget for Dubai Basketball and their fans.

Xavi Pascual congratulated Crvena Zvezda on their win and described the contest as "One game that we were horrible in all the situations. Forty minutes a disaster. Only maybe the first 10 minutes we were in the game but from this moment we lost control of everything. We didn't play a good level of defense as we were doing before, we did not share ball on offenee, we were static…lack of energy… We had the worst night in all the season so far."

Dwayne Bacon top-scored for Dubai with 13 points, adding 3 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and a block. Tornike Shengelia added 12 points and 4 rebounds. Jordan Nwora was the game's top scorer with 20 points and 6 rebounds, and his effort was supported by Semi Ojeleye with 12 points and 7 rebounds.

Dubai Basketball will now look to bounce back on the road against U-BT Cluj-Napoca in ABA League before resuming their EuroLeague campaign with games against Kosner Baskonia and EA7 Milano next week.