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.
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