Wednesday at17:30 is the duel for third place against Olympiakos

Photo Credit: Getty/EB/Molina

In the end, there was simply a lack of strength: At the start of the Euroleague tournament in Valencia, the Bayern basketball players attempted a surprise against the hosts until the 37th minute (74-75), before the favorite was able to break away to a 84-76 lead. The team of head coach Andrea Trinchieri will now play on Wednesday (16.9., 17:30) for third-place against Olympiakos Piraeus, who lostsurprisingly against Asvel Villeurbanne clearly 74-57 (32:25).

MagentaSport will broadcast both games, including the final (20:00).

In the first half the FCBB still had problems with rebounding and in defending against Valencia's top scorer, Center Mike Tobey (17 points). But in the course of the game they fought their way back to tie things up thanks to a three from Nick Weiler-Babb. After a 7-0 run by Valencia to 61-70  the game seemed to be decided, but Weiler-Babb and Malcolm Thomas reduced the lead once more to 75-74 (37th). No basket was made for three minutes by the German squad and Valencia's quality finally prevailed.

Andrea Trinchieri: "First of all we are all happy that EuroLeague basketball is back. Otherwise, congratulations to Valencia, they have a very good team. Sometimes you get a headache because of them, how they can shoot from position one to five, that makes it very difficult. In the first half we were not good, in the second half we were much better. We are on our way to adapting to each other on defense. We even had the momentum and could have won, but the open threes didn't fall and then our energy was gone. But that was again a small step forward, basically it was progress."

Zan Mark Sisko: "It was a game with many ups and downs, especially in the first half. We had problems with their defense and were late on defense even in some moments. In the second half we put a lot of energy into it, in the end we lacked a bit of luck with open shots and then we lacked energy."

FCBB: Weiler-Babb 14 (5 Reb.), Baldwin 12, Bray 6, Reynolds 2, Thomas 2, Lucic 12, Flaccadori, Djedovic, Zipser 5, Johnson 9, Sisko 10, Radosevic 4.

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