Lebanon’s Al Riyadi secured the Dubai International Basketball Championship title with a dominant 88-57 victory over Sagesse on Saturday night. 

Asian champions Al Riyadi imposed stingy defence at the start and ran the ball smoothly in transition to establish a 20-point margin, 27-7, at the end of the first quarter.

They padded the lead to 29 in the second period before Sagesse had a 10-0 spurt highlighted by a buzzer-beating slam dunk by Aaron Harper to cut the deficit to 19, 44-25, at half time.

Former NBA Toronto Raptors player Loren Woods opened the third quarter with an emphatic slam and his team-mates Ismail Ahmed, Jean Abdel Nour and Ahmed Ibrahim followed with several more slam dunks for Al Riyadi.

A steal by Abdel Nour and his strong drive to the basket gave Al Riyadi a comfortable 30-point lead going into the final quarter and en route to their eventual win.

“We really came prepared for this championship game,” Abdel Nour told Sport360°. “We outscored them (Sagesse) 27-7 in the first quarter and a 20-point difference against a team like us is not easy to overcome.”

Al Riyadi coach Subotic Slobodan added: “Defence was the key to our victory. We did a great job in containing them and we took advantage of the mismatch in height.”

Sagesse coach Fouad Abo Shagrah said: “They really deserve to win. We played our worst game ever because of fatigue.”

Earlier in the day, Dubai-based Al Ahli trounced Aramex of Jordan 102-86 to finish in third place.

 

 

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