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Pau Gasol has visibly aged, but he can still do it on the floor
Photo:
Enric Fontcuberta / EPA
After the historic entry into the knockout phase of the Euroleague, the basketball players of FC Bayern Munich also won the last main round game in the highest European competition.
Coach Andrea Trinchieri's team surprisingly prevailed 82:72 (43:37) against the leaders FC Barcelona.
At Barça, NBA legend Pau Gasol celebrated his comeback in Spanish basketball after around 20 years.
In 2001 he left Barcelona to sign up for the NBA draft.
Among other things, he played for the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom Gasol won the title twice.
The now 40-year-old has been voted all-star six times.
He had paused for two years.
The center scored nine points against Bayern, the best thrower of the game was Jalen Reynolds from Munich.
Bayern got off to a strong start, were quickly up 11: 4 and took a double-digit lead for the first time shortly before the end of the first quarter (29:19).
The Catalans, who did without top scorer Nikola Mirotic, made the game more even and reduced the gap to six points by half time.
After the break, the mistakes in the Munich game increased and Barcelona came close to two points - but Bayern found an answer and finally won.
In the final table, Bayern landed in fifth place and will meet the Italian top club Olimpia Milan in their quarter-finals from April 20th.
The round of the last eight is played in best-of-five mode, the Italians have home rights as the fourth-best team in the main round.
hba / hba / sid