The expectations around Dubai Basketball have changed quickly enough that 93 points, two outstanding individual performances and a late opportunity to win no longer feel like much consolation. Dwayne Bacon and Mfiondu Kabengele gave Dubai 46 points and 23 rebounds against Paris on Tuesday. Xavi Pascual still had good reason to look at the evening as an opportunity lost.

That is partly a consequence of what Dubai have already achieved. Last season brought the club its first ABA League championship and an 11th place finish in its debut EuroLeague campaign, just outside the play in positions. The title was secured against Partizan in Belgrade, with an 83:81 victory completing a finals series won by three games to one. There was a trophy to show for the progress, along with a clear indication of where the next improvement needed to come. Dubai could compete in Europe. Extending that involvement beyond the regular season was another matter.

Eight games into Pascual’s first EuroLeague campaign with the club, the evidence is encouraging without being settled. Dubai have five wins, including successes against Real Madrid and Barcelona and three consecutive victories on the road before Paris interrupted that run. They have also experienced two very different home defeats: an evening of severe scoring difficulty against Crvena Zvezda and a game against Paris in which 93 points were not enough. The same result has arrived through different weaknesses.

Pascual inherited more than a collection of promising players. Bacon, Kabengele, McKinley Wright IV, Džanan Musa and Filip Petrušev were among the retained core, and the summer additions included Elie Okobo, Jaron Blossomgame and Tornike Shengelia. Keeping familiar combinations while adding players of that experience made this a job of refinement and integration, rather than a reconstruction from the beginning. It also made patience a slightly harder proposition. A deeper roster brings more possibilities and fewer obvious excuses.

The coach himself framed the appointment as a continuation when he spoke to The National before the season. His stated aim was to attack quickly in transition, then organise intelligently when the immediate opportunity was unavailable. That is a useful starting point for assessing his Dubai team. Speed is part of the intention, but so is knowing when a possession needs more care. A fast game and a controlled one are not necessarily competing ambitions.

The opening month has provided glimpses of both. Dubai scored 93 at Baskonia, 101 at Milan and 107 at Bayern Munich during their three successive away wins. Those results matter beyond the totals. Winning away requires a team to find enough reliable possessions without the reassurance of its own arena, and Dubai have already shown they can do it in several settings. The progress should not be dismissed because the most recent evening ended badly.

In Munich, the most striking detail was the 63 points Dubai had accumulated by half time. Yet Bayern’s reaction also supplied evidence of work at the other end. Vladimir Lucic said afterwards that his team had struggled to find a solution against Dubai’s switching defence. It was a specific account from an opponent of something Pascual’s players had made difficult. The defensive potential is therefore not merely a promise attached to the coach’s reputation.

What remains uncertain is how consistently Dubai can reproduce that control. Milan was a warning even in victory. Dubai built a 20 point lead in the final quarter, then allowed the game to become close enough for Bacon’s late free throws to be required. Pascual criticised the loss of concentration and mistakes in the closing minutes. Paris was a different contest, but the concern about allowing an opponent back into a favourable situation did not begin on Tuesday.

“We lost the game on defence. We can’t score 93 points and lose the game,” he said in comments published by Dubai after Paris’s six point win.

There is a temptation to read that simply as a demand for more effort. The more useful question is what Dubai can make repeatable when the game becomes uncomfortable. Against Paris, Nadir Hifi made only four of his 15 attempts from the field, yet finished with 20 points because he converted all 10 free throws. Restricting an opponent’s shooting percentage had not prevented him from having a decisive scoring night. The possession still had to be completed without offering him another route to points.

Dubai’s own attack has enough variety that it should not depend on one kind of successful evening. Bacon demonstrated that especially clearly over the past fortnight. In Milan he made all six of his three point attempts on the way to 29 points. Against Paris, his most efficient work came inside the arc, where he made nine of 11. He can contribute when the game asks for something different from the performance that worked a week earlier.

Kabengele gives that flexibility a physical foundation. His 22 points and 13 rebounds against Paris followed 24 points in Munich, and his value cannot be reduced to whether an occasional three goes in. Against Paris he made eight of 12 attempts from two point range. With Bacon, he gave Dubai a productive way to continue scoring when the perimeter return declined. Their combined rebounding also supplied a substantial share of the work needed to extend attacks and finish defensive possessions.

That makes the outside shooting worth viewing with some restraint. Dubai made five of eight threes in the first half against Paris, then only three of 17 after the interval. Nevertheless, they won the third quarter by six points while converting just one of eight attempts from distance. They recovered despite those misses, with Bacon and Kabengele providing more reliable scoring inside. Dubai had other resources, even on a night when the additional outside attempts produced diminishing returns.

The broader figures suggest improved conversion rather than a dramatic change in volume. Across the seven EuroLeague games before Paris, Dubai made 38.7 per cent of their threes on 24 attempts per game, compared with 34.9 per cent on 23.6 attempts over last season’s regular season. Seven games remain a small sample, and the percentages do not establish whether the shots themselves were better. For Pascual, the more durable advantage would be an offence that still creates useful opportunities when Bacon’s exceptional night in Milan is replaced by something ordinary. Kabengele’s finishing and the options around the pair give him material to work with.

Those options have already made tangible contributions. At Baskonia, Petrušev replaced Shengelia in the starting group after the interval and finished as Dubai’s leading scorer with 17. Okobo added 14 points and four assists, while Mamadi Diakite contributed 11 points in 13 minutes. The ability to change personnel without abandoning the attack is one of the practical benefits of the summer’s recruitment. It gives Pascual choices when the first combination is not delivering what the game needs.

It also creates work that a list of accomplished names cannot resolve on its own. Players must learn when they are being asked to initiate, support, finish or defend a different assignment. A deep squad is valuable across two competitions, but only if those contributions fit together. Eight EuroLeague games provide examples of that happening, not proof that the process is complete. The challenge is to preserve the variety without turning every difficult spell into a fresh search for a solution.

Paris exposed how much that still matters. Terry Tarpey’s pressure was prominent enough for Pascual to single him out afterwards, although he scored only nine points. Dubai’s leading scorers had the more conspicuous individual totals, but Paris received contributions that helped shape the possessions around them. For a team trying to move beyond last season’s European finish, recognising and matching that less visible work is as important as adding another high scoring performance.

None of this diminishes the start. Five wins from eight games is a useful position, and the sequence of away victories has given Dubai more substance than a promising roster announcement ever could. Nor should an ABA League title be treated as something that automatically transfers into EuroLeague certainty. Dubai have also won all four ABA League games they have played this season, maintaining a reassuring start to the title defence. The achievements sit alongside one another: one competition has already brought a championship, while the other is still testing how consistently Dubai can sustain its best basketball.

Hapoel Tel Aviv’s visit on Friday offers the next opportunity to do that. Pascual does not need to discover whether Bacon can score or Kabengele can impose himself; the recent games have supplied ample evidence. He needs the possessions around those performances to become more dependable. Dubai have already shown enough quality to make another step forward plausible. How often they can protect that quality when a game stops going their way will determine how large the step becomes.