MADRID — Los Angeles Lakers star Pau Gasol practiced for the first time with Barcelona, his team until the NBA lockout ends.

Gasol says Spain would be the “best option” if he had to look for another league.

He says it would be a “catastrophe” if the NBA lockout leads to the season being canceled.

Younger brother Marc Gasol of the Memphis Grizzlies started practicing with Barcelona on Tuesday, while Pau waited a few more days because of an ankle injury.

The brothers were part of the Spain team that won the European Championship last month.

Dallas Mavericks forward Rudy Fernandez signed a contract last month with Real Madrid to play basketball until the end of the lockout.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP)—Pau and Marc Gasol(notes) combined for 43 points to lead
defending champion Spain past Dirk Nowitzki’s(notes) Germany 77-68 at the European
basketball championship on Wednesday.

Marc Gasol of the Memphis Grizzlies scored 24 points and his older brother
Pau, the Los Angeles Lakers center, added 19 as Spain led throughout most of the
match.

Germany became sloppy down the stretch, and the loss leaves it close to
missing the quarterfinals.

Nowitzki of the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks and Chris Kaman(notes) of the Los
Angeles Clippers led Germany with 19 and 15 points, respectively, but both shot
under 50 percent from the field. Kaman added 12 rebounds for a double-double.

Since head-to-head results from the first group stage carry over into this
round, Germany is now 0-3, while Spain is 2-1 in their Group E. Four teams from
each group advance to the quarterfinals.

“We kept the lead basically in the whole match but we never had the big run
to break open the game,” Spain coach Sergio Scariolo said. “We did a good job
on their stars. They scored but we kept them to a low percentage.”

Spain took a nine-point lead on Pau Gasol’s(notes) basket with less than six
minutes remaining in the third quarter. But Germany kept coming back and
Nowitzki’s consecutive baskets at the end of the third and the start of the
fourth put Germany up by one.

But with Spain up by seven with less than 2 minutes less, Germany missed a
couple of shots—including a jumper by Nowitzki—and Ricky Rubio(notes) had an
important steal to help Spain cruise home.

“We could not get the important baskets and rebounds at the end, and we
turned the ball over too much,” Germany forward Johannes Herber said.

The Gasol brothers scored Spain’s last nine points, seven coming from Pau.
Marc had only two in the fourth quarter, a pair of free throws that had given
Spain the seven-point lead with just over two minutes remaining. The brothers
also had 12 rebounds between them.

Germany had twice as many turnovers at 16.

“That’s too many at a European championship,” Nowitzki said. “We are not
far from the top teams but in the decisive phase they switch into a higher gear
and we make a couple of mistakes. That makes the difference.”

“We couldn’t play our running game, they stopped us very well, but we took
control in the last five minutes,” said Rubio, the recent Minnesota
Timberwolves signing.

Germany coach Dirk Bauermann said his team did everything it could “to make
life as difficult as possible” for the defending champion.

“But in the fourth we either missed the shot or turned the ball over,” he
said.

The NBA lockout hasn’t cost us any basketball games yet, but with no end in sight, we are getting starved for some basketball. Enter the European basketball championships! Starved for basketball? Follow Los Angeles Lakers big man Pau Gasol as he leads Spain in Eurobasket 2011.

Spain has played three games so far in Group A, and Gasol has shined in all three wins. He scored 29 and grabbed seven rebounds against Poland, then made eight of nine field goals while dropping 20 on Portugal, and scored 21 against noted basketball powerhouse Great Britain.

Today’s game against Lithuania will be played at noon PDT.

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