Pablo Laso was brief when explaining the first defeat in the Euroleague. And he left a poisoned greeting to his players: “Welcome to the Euroleague.” Then he made a very simple calculation: “We started with 0:10 and lost by seven.” The coach of the FC Bayern basketball players would obviously have preferred to say goodbye to the Greek night on which he celebrated his 56th birthday with a different result than this 71:78 defeat at Panathinaikos Athens. Laso was reportedly so upset that he even decided not to toast the new year with a glass of wine.
The coach’s resentment was understandable, because due to their sleepiness in the early stages, his team missed the chance to surprise a favorite who also had to deal with a change and didn’t seem very stable. The opportunity to appease Laso’s anger will already exist this Sunday, when FCB hosts national rivals Oldenburg in the cup round of 16 at BMW Park. Especially since the first upward appearance in the national game also went wrong with an unexpected 67:77 defeat that the coach certainly hasn’t forgotten – in Oldenburg.
Of course, there are still a whopping 32 games left in the Euroleague in the main round alone, and Munich is now in the middle of the field after the win against Berlin. But given the increased number of competitors and the target of eighth place, which would enable qualification for the knockout round as the last place, these missed two and a half minutes in the Greek capital could still prove painful. Juancho Hernangomez scored to make it 10-0; the Spanish European champion couldn’t be a better representative of the Greeks’ ambitions.
Athens finished last season in an indisputable 17th and penultimate place, and the personnel commitment of the traditional Greek club, which is mainly financed by a very wealthy shipping company, was correspondingly low. Hernangomez, for example, comes from the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, and the Greek record champion and four-time Euroleague winner has also attracted numerous top European players – such as center Matthias Lessort from Partisan Belgrade. Athens’ biggest coup came in the signing of playmaker Kostas Sloukas, who was poached by arch-rivals Olympiacos Piraeus.
The FCB is full of players who have a lot of Euroleague experience – which they only prove in phases
Sloukas was missing against Bayern, but Lessort proved his class with 16 points and six rebounds. Leandro Bolmaro scored best for Munich with 19 points, center Devin Booker (11) and world champion Isaac Bonga (10) also scored in double figures. Coach Laso’s poisoned greeting was probably aimed at all of them, because his team is full of players who bring a lot of Euroleague experience to the floor. They only proved this at times when they immediately came close to the Greeks (50:48, 28th minute; 64:59, 35th).
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“Our start was bad, but they were hot, we didn’t hold up defensively or offensively”: Bayern coach Pablo Laso was not satisfied with the performance of his basketball players – but he praised their fighting spirit.
(Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa)
However, ten turnovers and a miserable three-point rate of just over 20 percent prevented possible success. “Our start was bad, but they were hot, we didn’t hold up defensively or offensively. The 10-0 score dragged on for a bit,” said Laso, who at least praised the fighting spirit of his players: “We did a great job to come back, but for a real comeback you also have to hit hard shots.”
That in turn didn’t work out, Bayern’s game lacked coordination and continuity. Against teams like Athens, it is not enough if individual players repeatedly show their class while others are completely beside themselves. Like Carsen Edwards, who didn’t score a single point. In return, Bolmaro demonstrated what potential he has. The playmaker was trained at FC Barcelona, played in the NBA for the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Utah Jazz despite his young age of 23, after which he had a strong season for Tenerife in the Spanish elite league ACB before he left – mainly because of the coach Laso – moved to the Isar. Against Athens he was almost unstoppable in one-on-one situations and drove Bayern’s game forward with his fast dribbling. But the Argentine international was unsuccessful from a distance.
Bolmaro also mourned the sleepy initial phase, saying it was only after that that they countered the opponent’s “physicality and aggressiveness” with appropriate determination. Now you have to “learn from your mistakes” quickly. Especially since it is also important to appease the trainer again.
