The Serbian team et club records for points scored and largest first-quarter margin in the opening period of its slender win against Dubai
Strong first quarter propels Crvena Zvezda to home win over Dubai
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 25 of 38
Regular Season
Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet BelgradeCZV
9592
Dubai BasketballDUB
Overview
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Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade improved to 15-10 and solidified its postseason position after a feisty 95-92 home win over Dubai Basketball, its fourth successive win in the EuroLeague and its first in four meetings with the Middle East franchise in all competitions.
Having suffered a pair of losses in the regional ABA League last season as well as an 86-102 setback in the reverse EuroLeague fixture earlier this term, Zvezda came back with a vengeance and romped into a 34-11 lead late in the first quarter.
The hosts couldn’t put a foot wrong as they dished out 10 assists and committed no turnovers in the opening period, having also shot 5-of-8 from deep to set the biggest first-quarter margin in the club’s history and a record tally in points scored in the opening 10 minutes.
Trailing 34-14 after the first quarter and rocked by a number of Zvezda dunks, including a monster one from big man Joel Bolomboy, who returned to EuroLeague action for the first time since March 2025, Dubai looked dead and buried.
However, the visitors bounced back in the second as Zvezda’s offense came to a screeching halt while Mfiondu Kabengele caused the home team all sorts of problems in the paint, while McKinley Wright followed in his footsteps and ran the back court.
Zvezda led 44-41 at the interval and saw its lead slashed to 59-58 midway through the third quarter, but just when anxiety started to creep into the vocal home fans, Jared Butler hit some tough shots from long range and the hosts were able to breathe again.
Leading 68-61 ahead of the fourth quarter, Zvezda also thrived on Ebuka Izundu’s hard work in the paint and Jordan Nwora’s all-round proficiency to open up an 84-69 gap before Dubai nearly made a fight of it in the home straight.
Kabengele hit an audacious three-pointer on the final buzzer to close the gap to just three points, but in the end it didn’t matter as Zvezda celebrated its return to the Belgrade Arena for the first time since a 90-89 win over Virtus Bologna on December 19.
Izundu, who won the player of the game accolade, was humble in his postgame comments. “I just tried to play hard for my team and protect the rim,” he said, having racked up 18 points and 8 boards on 8-of-9 shooting from the floor.
“It’s good to be back in the Arena with the fans as it helps a lot. I gave the team a lot of second-chance opportunities, the easy points, as that’s what I do. The team and the coach trust me so I tried to get some offensive rebounds to win possessions. We just need to keep going one game at a time to get where we need to be,” the big Nigerian added.
Butler and Codi Miller-McIntyre chipped in with 16 points each, the latter also dishing out 7 assists to complement an efficient performance by Nwora, who scored a team-high 22 points for Zvezda. At the other end, Kabengele excelled with 24 points and 8 boards, Dwayne Bacon scored 19 and Wright added 16.
“We found the rhythm late in the third quarter and early in the fourth. I am happy with the win and apart from inconsistency in the second quarter, we did well,” said the Zvezda head coach Sasa Obradovic. “I didn’t expect an easy win anyway and we move on from here. The first quarter was the best we’ve played all season, but complacency seems to have crept in as it usually does when you make such a good start.”
Dubai head coach Jurica Golemac stressed that his team looked less than a sum of its parts in the cauldron of Belgrade Arena, where 16,000 noisy fans put wind in the home team’s sails from start to finish.
“We had too many individual solutions on offense and made too many defensive mistakes,” he said. “Second chance points that we conceded cost us the win. Congratulations to Zvezda, they were stronger and more focused than us. We had some good minutes but in a road game you can’t afford not to do the dirty work. I expected a lot more from my team, especially on defense.”
