Formed less than 10 months ago, Dubai Basketball have already forged a formidable winning mentality.
The team just finished a memorable debut regular season, with their impressive 25-5 record good enough for third place in the Adriatic Basketball Association (ABA) League.
They now enter the play-offs riding a 13-match winning streak and fuelled by a potent mix of confidence and ambition.
They host the Slovenian club Cedevita Olimpija in Game 1 of a best-of-three quarter-final series at the Coca-Cola Arena on Sunday.
Game 2 lands in Ljubljana next Friday, with the decider – if needed – slated for the UAE thanks to Dubai's superior league position.
The teams split their regular season meetings one apiece, with Dubai making an early statement of intent on the road last September before an agonising single-point home court reverse in January.
That was the last time they tasted defeat and their Slovenian head coach Jurica Golemac has faith the team will gain revenge on his compatriots this weekend.
“This game is the most important and the toughest one so far. We just need to be confident and do what we have been doing in the last 10 months,” the 47-year-old Golemac, himself a former Cedevita Olimpija coach, told The National.
“We have managed to come to the end of the regular season. Of course we are satisfied with the results that we have achieved with this brand new team, that we assembled last August.
“We have been together for less than 10 months, so reaching the play-off is indeed an achievement by itself. It's a new challenge for us now; we are not giving up, we are not satisfied with this, what we did until now. We are a very ambitious side.
“We want to show everybody the results we have in the regular season … We can achieve a better one in the play-offs. We are healthy, we are full of ambitions, full of confidence, and with our fans behind us, we are ready to achieve great things.”
It's hard to know what is more impressive – the results Dubai have achieved on the court or the fan base they have built up in such a short space of time.
Around 4,500 fans flocked to the Coca-Cola Arena last weekend to see them close the regular season with an emphatic win over Montenegrin outfit Buducnost.
Klemen Prepelic, the captain and playmaker who was instrumental in assembling a cosmopolitan squad with nine different nations represented, says they have been able to foster an incredible team spirit and chemistry despite the roster being somewhat thrown together.
“I believe with this winning mentality, with the confidence that we gained in the last couple of months, we are going to be more than ready,” said Slovenian international Prepelic.
“This is the most important game of the season. It's the first game of the play-offs. We are going to make 120 per cent effort to keep the advantage. I believe it's all about us.
“I know these guys from Olympija. Some of them are my friends from the national team. I played there last year; I know the environment of the club.
“It's all about us. You have to show yourself, be the best version of yourself, first individual, then as a team, and if we're going to do the things properly and be with the right mindset and energy, I believe that we're going to come out with the win.”
Aside from leading the side, the shooting guard, 32, has contributed immensely to building Dubai Basketball through his contacts and relationships with other players.
“To build such a chemistry in such an environment in such a short period of time is incredible, and I want to give all the credit to the guys and especially to the owner [Abdullah Saeed Al Naboodah], the GM [Dejan Kamenjasevic] and the coach,” he added.
Dubai's former NBA star Davis Bertans noted that the biggest change he felt since arriving is in the team’s togetherness and the winning culture they have created.
The Latvian, who moved out from the NBA having represented teams such as Washington Wizards, Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder, was humble in expressing himself as just another player in the squad.
“I don't usually look at myself as a star player. I'm part of the team. I'm really dependent on my teammates. I'm a shooter. I'm not a guy that's going to create much for myself,” the power-forward said.
“My teammates have been able to find me in great positions so that's the biggest part. I think that's why we succeed as a team, not a single guy on the team thinks that he's a star player and he has to go out there and take care of it every night.”
Of the game against Olimpija, he added: “It’s the first game in the play-offs, we've got to come out with a lot of energy, got to focus on how we're going to play, we don't have to worry about how they're going to play.
“It's all about what we do on the court and not to worry about how they're going to play. It's all about what we do on the court and if we play our best basketball, the win's going to come.”
