By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
The 2006 Mundobasket – or FIBA World Cup as it’s now called – was suppose to be the return of USA to the top. After the 2002 Indianapolis disaster and the 2004 Olympic bronze medal, nobody believed that a US team build in order to excel in the world stage could fail.
Well, they did in the game that remained the only defeat in coach Mike Krzyzewski’s second tour of duty in the USA national team. On the 1st of September 2006 in Saitama, Japan, Greece beat USA 101-95 in the semifinal of the Mundobasket, leading to the creation of the 2008 “Redeem-team”. But this story is about what happened 10 years ago.
“The lad is sad”
This tune was picked to represent Greek music during the time-outs in the arena. Composed by iconic Greek musician Mikis Theodorakis, it starts its lyrics by the verse “the lad is sad”, almost an irony for the mood in the US bench during the game. The Greeks didn’t have an NBA player on their roster, although Vassilis Spanoulis was headed for the Houston Rockets, and that was enough for the casual US fan to dismiss them. Still Greece was the reigning Eurobasket champ and probably an even better team that the Greeks themselves believed.
“We have to contain their shooters and specially Diamantidis who is knocking down every shot”, said Rudy Tomjanovich, then USA director of scouting, before the game to the Greek press and even Diamantidis – at the time – had a hard time to believe it:
They said so? And I held them in high esteem
This was not a facade. Before the game very few were giving to unbeaten since the previous summer Greece a real chance to win.
And that’s how the game started. After a Greek time-out, Joe Johnson’s three gave Krzyzewski’s team their biggest lead at 33-21 with 6:27 left in the half and USA seemed ready to explode and finish the game, giving no chance to their opponent. This didn’t happen. A lay up by Papaloukas completed a 9-0 run to close within 33-30 and force coach K to call a time-out to settle his team down.
“The lad is sad”
The rest of the game remains the best ever performance by the Greek national team. The players of coach Giannakis went into the locker room with a 45-41 lead and they stayed in front the rest of the way. Vasilis Spanoulis scored 22 points, Michalis Kakiouzis tallied 15 points, while Sofoklis Schortsanitis had 14 points in 17 minutes. Diamantidis chipped in 12 points and five assists and Theo Papaloukas proved the perfect mastermind to the Greek attack, dishing out a tournament-high 12 assists (you can see the full stats of the game here).
Greece was almost perfect, scoring on all their first 13 possessions of the second half and getting something from everyone, like from Dimos Dikoudis who came off the bench to make three straight baskets as the Europeans opened a 71-58 lead with 4:01 left in the third. USA managed to cut the lead to four points (95-91) with 35 seconds left, but with Kakiouzis and Antonis Fotsis making their free throws the game was over.
It was huge blow for the basketball pride of US.
“Those guys are hurting and it’s probably a better thing we have to come back tomorrow and play again instead of sitting on this for two days,” Team USA managing director Jerry Colangelo, referring to the fact that the bronze medal game was played on Saturday, while the final was played on Sunday (with Spain missing Pau Gasol but beating Greece for the gold). The USA beat Argentina on the next game, got the medal and entered the plane back home, being absent on the last day of the tournament.
The shock was obvious. “They played damn near a perfect game,” American forward Chris Bosh said and Dwyane Wade stated what everyone has seen on the court:
They ran like one play the whole game
That play was the pick and roll with Papaloukas giving a clinic and then explaining: “I think we showed everybody that maybe we’re not very good athletes like them, but we know how to play the game. We are clever. It’s hard for one team, if they have so many big players, in one month to adapt to their new roles. All these players are big stars, but you have to do small different things. I think that was the difference: In our team, everybody knew what they had to do exactly.”
As coach K recently admitted, that game was a turning point for USA as they finally understood that the problem in 2002 and in 2004 was not the absence of some of their best players, but the international competition. Greece playing with their trademark three-guard lineup, despite not having injured Nikos Zisis, finished the game with just 12 turnovers against the pressure of the US defense.
“I have to thank the players first because they did something incredible,” Greek coach Panagiotis Giannakis said. “When one team spends a lot of energy on defense, it’s difficult to have the same spirit on offense. I think we did a great job because we made the US put more pressure on the ball and it allowed us to drive to the basket more easily”.
“Obviously the Greek team and their coaching staff did an amazing job today,” Mike Krzyzewski admitted, “their offense beat our defense, and I take responsibility for that. We win and lose together, but in a loss a coach needs to take more responsibility than anyone else”.
The only “foul” of coach Kryzewski in that press conference was that he didn’t mentioned the names of his opponents, referring to Papaloukas as “number 4” and Spanoulis as “number 7”. He has the excuse that Greek names are hard to pronounce, but after this result it never happened again with any opponent…