The timing may not be ideal, as the Greek national team is struggling to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar, even after yesterday’s impressive victory over Spain. But September 1 remains a landmark date for Greek basketball. Exactly 20 years ago today, the greatest victory in the history of the sport in Greece—and perhaps the greatest in the history of Greek sports—took place. The national basketball team had defeated the all-powerful U.S. in the World Championship semifinal in Saitama. Not by… coincidence, nor through dirty tricks or anti-basketball tactics, but with a flawless performance and an NBA-style score: 101–95.
For the older fans to reminisce and the younger ones to learn, read these 20 highlights from that magical afternoon in 2006, when the Greeks proved that nothing is impossible.
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
The national team’s roster consisted of four Panathinaikos players—Diamantidis, Tsartsaris, Hatzivrettas, and Dikoudis—two from Olympiacos, Schortsanitis and Vasilopoulos, two from Dynamo Moscow—Fotsis and Papadopoulos—one each from CSKA Moscow (Papaloukas) and Benetton Treviso, Zisis from Barcelona, Kakiouzis and the Houston Rockets, and Spanoulis. The U.S. team, on the other hand, had twelve players from an equal number of different teams: LeBron James of the Cavaliers, Dwyane Wade of the Heat, Carmelo Anthony of the Nuggets, Chris Bosh of the Raptors, Chris Paul of the Hornets, Dwight Howard of the Magic, Joe Johnson of the Hawks, Kirk Hinrich of the Bulls, Shane Battier of the Rockets, Anton Jamison of the Wizards, Brad Miller of the Kings, and Elton Brand of the Clippers.
The Greek team, following the revamp that took place at the 2004 Olympic Games, had one of the youngest rosters. The only player in his 30s was Kakiouzis, while Papaloukas, Hatzivrettas, and Dikoudis were 29, Tsartsaris was 27, Diamantidis and Papadopoulos were 26, Fotsis was 25, Spanoulis was 24, Zisis was 23, Vasilopoulos was 22, and Schortsanitis was 21. Team USA was similarly young. With the exception of Miller and Jamison, both in their 30s—who were the only two not to play in the semifinal—the rest were quite young to very young: LeBron, Bosh, and Carmelo; Paul and Howard were 21; Wade was 24; Johnson and Heinrich were 25; Brand was 27; and Battier was 28.
Both teams had reached the semifinals undefeated, with seven wins in as many games: Greece had defeated, in succession, Qatar (84-64), Lithuania (81–76), Australia (72–69), Brazil (91–80), and Turkey (76–69) in the group stage, and in the knockout rounds, China (95–64) and France (73–56). The U.S. had defeated Puerto Rico (111–100), China (121–90), Slovenia (114–95), Italy (94–85), and Senegal (103–58) in the group stage, and Australia (113–73) and Germany (85–65) in the knockout rounds.
Thodoris Papaloukas was perhaps the first to… dare to say that what seemed like a miracle would be possible. Speaking to members of the Greek delegation after the quarterfinal against France, he said, “I have a feeling we’re going to beat the U.S.…” You could call him a prophet. Mike Krzyzewski, the U.S. coach, was in a relaxed mood—perhaps because of his confidence in victory—before the semifinal. Speaking to the Greek media on the eve of the game, he recalled that when he visited Greece in 1988 as Duke’s coach, he had gone to a bouzouki club and broken a lot of plates.
Faith in the national team’s victory was there even before tip-off and grew stronger as the minutes of the game passed. In fact, during the break between the first and second quarters of the game, the ERT live broadcast from the Greek bench captured the comment: “Come on, let’s go. We’ve got them, it’s nothing!”
Foul trouble was a significant factor for both teams as the game progressed. LeBron, Carmelo, and Wade each had two at the start of the second quarter, while Papadopoulos picked up his third at 6:45 before halftime. Schortsanitis also reached three fouls at 7:18 before the end of the third quarter, while Spanoulis played the final 3:34 with four fouls, when the Greek team was leading 89-81.
The largest lead the Americans held in the game was +12, 33–21, with 6:27 remaining in the first half. Shortly after, the moment came that many players on the national team recognize as the turning point of the game. After a missed dunk by Sofoklis Schortsanitis, Chris Paul attempted to score on the fast break, but Dimitris Diamantidis, with an impressive block… put an end to the run.
Beyond that play, another key to getting back into the game was the zone defense employed by Panagiotis Giannakis, going… against his own principles, as he had rarely employed it throughout his coaching career. He chose to… force the Americans to shoot from long range rather than get easy layups, and his strategy paid off, as the U.S. shot 9-for-28 from three-point range. In contrast, Greece shot with… phenomenal percentages: 71.1% on two-pointers (27-of-38) and 44.4% on three-pointers (8-of-18). Thanks to this hot streak, the national team got back into the game and took a 39-38 on a basket by Sofoklis Schortsanitis with 1:47 left in the first half, which ended 45-41.
Another pivotal moment of the game came at the end of the third quarter. Wade drove to the basket, but missed under pressure from the Greek defense, and the Greek national team launched a fast break that ended with a layup by Spanoulis at the buzzer, giving them a +12 lead, 77–65, for the “official favorite.”
It was “Kill Bill” who essentially sealed the game, as the U.S. closed the gap from a 14-point deficit in the third quarter (69–55) to -5 (91–86), he hit a three-pointer with 2:01 remaining to make it 94–86. The Americans cut the lead to 95-91 with a three-pointer by Heinrich at 37 seconds, but it was too late.
Sofoklis Schortsanitis, with 14 points and 6-for-7 shooting from the field, dismantled every U.S. defense as the pick-and-roll receiver. In fact, when Mike Krzyzewski instructed LeBron James to play frontcourt defense to prevent the feed pass to “Sofo,” he replied, “But how am I supposed to get in front of him? He’s so massive!”
And yet, the historic game sheet from the semifinal contains… an error. Due to a typographical error, the score sheet listed the number 102 twice and the number 101 not at all—which were, in fact, the points scored by the Greek team.
Spanoulis was the national team’s leading scorer in the semifinal with 22 points. Captain Kakiouzis had 15 points and 6 rebounds, Schortsanitis had 14 points on 6-for-7 shooting from the field, Diamantidis had 12 points and 5 assists, Papaloukas had 8 points with 5 rebounds and 12 assists (out of Greece’s 19 total), Fotsis had 9 points with 3 rebounds, Dikoudis had 8 points with 5 rebounds, Papadopoulos with 8, Tsartsaris with 3, Hatzivrettas with 2, and the only player who didn’t score was Vasilopoulos. Carmelo with 27, Wade with 19, LeBron with 17, Heinrich with 12, and Howard with 10 were the top scorers for the U.S.
The Team USA players were so shocked and disappointed by the result that, with very few exceptions, they headed straight to the locker room after the game ended, without shaking hands with their opponents as is customary. All except one: Shane Battier, who knew that in a few weeks he would be a teammate of Vassilis Spanoulis on the Rockets, went first to “Kill Bill” himself and then to the locker room, where he congratulated the Greek team and rightly praised their victory.
At the end of the game, the entire team broke into a wild dance, hugging each other in a circle in the center of the court. Nikos Zisis also ran over to join them; just a few days earlier, on August 23, had been struck by a vicious elbow from Anderson Varejão, resulting in a triple fracture of his zygomatic bone and the risk of permanent damage. He was hospitalized for several days and had been discharged 2–3 days before the semifinal.
“The U.S. has players with incredible potential. The Greeks have a fantastic team.” This comment by Chris Sheridan on ESPN spoke the whole truth. A truth that Mike Krzyzewski also acknowledged. “We need to learn more about how basketball is played outside the NBA. We learned a lot from the loss to Greece because we faced a team that plays amazing basketball and competes with team spirit,” he said. It was a lesson they took to heart, as it took 13 years and 78 games after that loss for Team USA to lose again.
The semifinal began at 10:30 a.m. Greek time and ended about two hours later. Although it was midday and most people had returned to work after the summer break, large crowds gathered in downtown Athens and other major cities to celebrate. In fact, employees of the Ministry of Finance leaned out of their windows and began throwing paper confetti, while the crowds brought traffic to a standstill in Omonia Square for quite some time.
On the bulletin board in the locker room, where the coaches wrote instructions and notes for the match, Dimos Dikoudis—a team official at the time and now head of national teams at the Hellenic Basketball Federation (EOK)—wrote “Great f***ers!” after the triumph over the U.S. After all… that’s what the Greek team had to show to beat Team USA. During the celebrations on the court, Dikoudis had taken the sash worn by Lazaros Papadopoulos and placed it on his own head.
-What does Giannis Antetokounmpo—who was 12 years old at the time and hadn’t even started playing basketball yet—have to do with the epic victory of 2006? The person closest to him outside his immediate family—his agent, Giorgos Panou—was a member of the national team’s coaching staff at the time. A few years later, he would discover Yiannis at Filathlitikos, and the rest is history.
-The national team didn’t make it in the final against Spain (70-47), but the government decided to award its members a bonus equivalent to that given to Olympic gold medalists! According to reports at the time, the amount they received was approximately 143,000 euros “net” and, in fact, legislation had to be passed to make the payment, as the law specified specific amounts for the second-place bonus (60,000 euros “net”).
*photo source: AP
