DUBAI (United Arab Emirates) - Shabab Al Ahli got off to a roaring start to their 2024/2025 FIBA West Asia Super League (WASL) campaign following an 83-65 mauling of Al Bashaer at the Sheikh Saeed Bin Maktoum Sports Hall, Tuesday night.
The home team set the tone early before breaking the game wide open in the third, turning in a performance indicative of their intentions to exceed expectations this season after a surprise run in the Basketball Champions League Asia last June.
It could be recalled that the champions from Dubai went all the way to the Final before settling for a runner-up finish to Al Riyadi in the tilt held on their home floor, and they seemingly carried over their fine play all the way to the Gulf League opener.
Now they've joined Kuwait Club as the early winners in Group A after spoiling the first game back of their counterparts from Oman, whom they've actually beaten as well in the WASL inaugurals back in 2022 by escaping with a 71-69 decision.
Al Bashaer are one of the pan-regional competition's pioneering teams but they've yet to post a win, having gone 0-7 in the league following Monday's result.
Game heroes: Hamed Lateef led Shabab Al Ahli with 19 points on an efficient 7-of-13 shooting from the floor, highlighted by a 3-of-5 clip from beyond the arc.
Sir'Dom Pointer, one of their reinforcements in the BCL Asia, finished with a double-double of 18 points and 11 rebounds, which he laced with 5 assists, 2 steals, and a block for an efficiency of 28 to bag home STEP AHEAD Player of the Game honors.
Shaheed Davis supplied 18 points as well with 6 rebounds and 4 steals, while fellow big man Omer Alameri chipped in 10 points in the dominant victory.
Turning point: Shabab Al Ahli were only leading by five heading into the last four minutes of the second chapter but Pointer and Qais Omar Alshabebi joined hands for an 8-2 run for their side to head into the intermission with a 42-32 lead.
Momentum would fully shift their way since, with Davis helping the duo stage a 10-2 rally for a 52-34 advantage with less than five minutes to go in the third canto.
The crew would lead by as many as 32 points, 77-45, behind a three-pointer courtesy of Alameri - off a Mohammad Juma find - with 4:53 left to in the game.
Stats don't lie: Shabab Al Ahli shot an efficient 52.3-percent from the floor, big thanks to their 28 assists. They also did it on the other end, racking up 14 steals that indeed played a huge factor behind Al Bashaer's 20 turnovers in the loss.
They said: "Yes, we won this game, but the problem is that we have some problems with our physical conditioning, and some problems from this game that we want to fix for the next games. We hope we can perform much better in the upcoming matches." - Oualid Zrida, Head Coach, Shabab Al Ahli
"We have a good team. I feel like the confidence us up. But we had a lot of mental mistakes and we need to correct that, keep improving as a team." - Sir'Dom Pointer, Shabab Al Ahli
"Every game benefits us, whether we play good or bad ... I hope we will respond next game so you guys can see us better." - Neven Luetic, Head Coach, Al Bashaer
"Our goal is to perform better than the last season because our team did not perform well back then. So in this competitions, our goal is to correct our mistakes and perform better. We are excited to do that." - Mahmood Al Souli, Al Bashaer
FIBA