Zhiba NBA

Chapter 109 (one hundred and eight) the broken dream team
The final round of the group stage started on August 8. In Group A, Spain took the lead in defeating New Zealand, winning all 23 games and qualifying first. Their opponent will be No.5 in Group B.The New Zealand team was eliminated.After a difficult battle, Italy narrowly beat Argentina by 4 point, so that they and Argentina qualified for the group stage with 1 wins and 3 losses.The last qualifying place will start a direct dialogue between China and Serbia and Montenegro.

At this time, the pressure on the Chinese players was enormous.Serbia and Montenegro beat the United States to rank first in the world before the Olympics. In the 2002 World Championships, they were still named Yugoslavia. They defeated the United States and Argentina to win the championship, while the Chinese team only ranked 12th in this World Championships.There is a clear gap between the strengths of the two. The only good news for China is that Serbia and Montenegro star Stujakovic failed to participate in the Olympic Games.

Before the Olympics, Yao Ming grew a beard and showed his ambition to lead the team to the quarterfinals. He said, "If you don't make it to the quarterfinals, you won't shave!" The time to test him has really come.This incident reflects the cultural differences between China and the United States. American athletes believe that the performance of the national team is only a part of their personal sports career; while Chinese athletes attach great importance to national honor. No matter how many achievements they have made in the club, they always put the national team first.The trio of Great Wall of China won the championship in the United States, but it made them more pressured. They must lead the national team to achieve good results in order to be worthy of the training of the motherland.

When the two sides entered the fourth quarter, the score was 51:54, and the Chinese team was still 3 points behind.Yao Ming himself scored 22 points, carrying the team to bite the score.He is already very tired, but the team is the only one who can score points in singles against the opponent's high-intensity defense at this time.

As soon as the final quarter came up, the Chinese team was defended by Serbia and Montenegro for a 24-second violation.Fortunately, it was not easy for the opponent to score. He missed consecutive three-pointers and even Bodi Loga missed.Yao Mingqiang made a foul and made 2 of 1 free throws.After Chinese point guard Liu Wei made a steal, forward Du Feng made another foul by rushing to the basket. Unfortunately, he still made 2 of 1 free throws, only 53 point behind at 54:1.

The sharpshooter Scepanovic, who had been silent for the entire game, finally woke up. He hit two consecutive three-pointers to widen the point difference to 7 points.This time it was the main small forward Zhu Fangyu who stood up to save the team. He scored 4 points in a row and once again pulled the point difference back to 1 goal.

This time it was the Serbia and Montenegro players' turn to be nervous. They are the world champions and a top team, but they were forced into the last moment by the Chinese team.The Chinese team is like an immortal Xiaoqiang, who can't be killed no matter how hard they fight, and is still stubbornly blocking their victory.

At this time, the Chinese team really showed what it means to unite as one.Yao Ming was tired, and outside players took turns to play. Du Feng, Li Nan, Liu Wei, and Zhu Fangyu took turns to play one after another.Our Chinese men's basketball team is not a strong team in the world. We lost 25 points to Spain, 25 points to Argentina, and 37 points to Italy. But we have the dragon soul of the Chinese nation, and our dignity and spirit have not fallen down!

In the last 1 minute and 44 seconds of the game, Yao Ming caused a foul and made 2 of 2 free throws.The two sides battled to a tie of 63!The Serbian and Montenegrin players panicked. They started to gamble on the outside three-pointer, but they didn't make any shots.Yao Ming's hook shot once again caused a foul by the opponent's center, and Drobinjak, who contributed the highest 17 points of Serbia and Montenegro, left the field with 5 fouls.Yao Ming made 2 free throws again, and the Chinese team achieved a comeback!

Serbia and Montenegro gave the top star Bodi Loga the key one, but he is also a player who has just played in the finals after a long season, and his physical fatigue is not lower than that of Yao Ming.This time he missed a fadeaway jumper.

Serbia and Montenegro players were forced to foul, and Wang Zhizhi, who shot accurately, made two free throws to end the suspense of the game.

Although Serbia and Montenegro players made a three-pointer at the buzzer, the Chinese team still defeated their opponents 67:66, staged a shocking reversal and successfully entered the quarterfinals.Yao Ming contributed 27+13 and became the biggest contributor again.

***
Group B ended with the victories of Lithuania, the United States and Greece.Lithuania ranked first in the group with five victories, while Puerto Rico, Greece and the United States also had 3 wins and 2 losses. After calculating the small points, the Dream Six team tragically ranked fourth in the group. They encountered the powerful Spanish team in the first round.

After qualifying, China can be said to have completed the task and no longer bear huge pressure.In the end, they lost to Lithuania with 20 points. Yao Ming still played at the superstar level of 29+11. This result can be regarded as an explanation to the fans all over the country.

Italy encountered the relatively weak Puerto Rico, leading the way and finally defeated the opponent by 13 points.Puerto Rico is a very small country with a population of only 300 million.This time they can defeat the powerful dream team and reach the top 8, which has already made the people ecstatic.

Argentina and the host Greece faced each other, and Argentina won by 5 points.Spanoulis didn't get a chance to play in this crucial battle, and he didn't have much performance in the group stage.The Greek team at this time did not belong to him when he was young.

The most eye-catching is undoubtedly the battle between the Dream Team Six and Spain.But it is not the two superstars Duncan Iverson who dominate this game, but Marbury.Lao Ma scored 31+4 and led the US team to an 8-point victory over their opponents and reached the semi-finals.The Spanish team ended their Olympic journey very regrettably. They only lost one game, but it was a fatal one.

The grouping of the semi-finals is the United States against Argentina, and Italy against Lithuania.The battle between the American duo attracted the attention of fans all over the world, and even NBA President David Stern also came to watch the game in person.The game ended with Argentina winning 89:81. Ginobili made 13 of 9 shots and contributed a game-high 29 points.The Dream Six swallowed the third and most critical loss of the Olympic Games.They failed to reach the final.This is the first time the United States has lost an Olympic men's basketball gold medal since NBA players were allowed to participate in the Olympics in 92.

The defeat also caused an uproar in the media.Fox Sports expressed disappointment: The dream is over, and the US team no longer deserves to be called the dream team.The Associated Press also frankly admits that Argentina is the better team.

In the European duo battle, Italy defeated Lithuania by 9 points.They meet Argentina in the final.

8月28日，最后的排名赛，中国队16分不敌西班牙，以No.8结束了奥运之旅。而6胜1负的西班牙却屈居第七。希腊队也以10分优势战胜了波多黎各成为No.5，斯潘诺里斯首发得到了7分。

In the bronze medal match, the US team finally regained its dignity.Marion scored a team-high 22 points and helped the team beat Lithuania by 8 points, avenging their defeat in the group stage.But this bronze medal cannot satisfy the proud Dream Six team.

The next final was completely dominated by the Argentines. Scola broke out and scored 25+11. Ginobili also scored 16+6+6. Argentina beat Italy by 15 points and won the first men's basketball Olympic gold medal in history.Prior to this, the United States, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia won all the men's basketball gold medals in Olympic history.

At the awards ceremony, Richard Jefferson's embarrassing expression of tilting his head and staring at the gold medal on the Argentine's chest was captured by an American reporter.Once this photo was published, it made Americans even more ashamed.Some radical fans even began to accuse first-line superstars such as Garnett, O'Neal, and Kobe, thinking that it was their unwillingness to play for the country that made the country ashamed.

Faced with great pressure, young people may shrink back or even shirk their responsibilities.After Carmelo Anthony returned home, he couldn't help but fired at the old coach Brown. He said that the main reason for the loss of the Dream Six team was that the head coach copied the Pistons' style of play too much, and the players' running time was too short and they were not familiar with the tactics.

In any case, the ball has been lost. In the face of the loss, the American professional basketball community began to reflect.Why did the dream team, which has always been invincible, fail in the Olympics? An ESPN analysis article pointed out that the Dream Team lost, but the NBA did not lose.Although the final gold medal does not belong to the United States, the best player Ginobili is an NBA player. Puerto Rico, which defeated the United States, also has NBA players such as Arroyo and Ramos. It is the mature league of the NBA that has cultivated outstanding basketball players from all over the world.

The article also reviewed the development of the NBA in recent years, and international players have occupied an increasingly important position.The newly promoted Rockets have three Chinese players, two Turkish players and French players, and they continue to expand their internationalization trend, choosing Brazilians and Greeks in the draft.The Eastern Conference champion Pistons are also based on the black superstar Bodi Loga.What about the last champion Spurs?The two core Ginobili is Argentine, and Duncan was born in the Virgin Islands, strictly speaking, they can be regarded as the "foreign aid" of the US team.It can be said that the internationalization of players is the general trend of the development of the league.The success of the Rockets is inseparable from their forward-looking daring to introduce a large number of international players.

This report gave Yuan Fei a chill. If international players become more popular than in his previous life, I am afraid Bogut, Yi Jianlian, Joe Alexander and other parallel importers with international backgrounds will become more popular.The media should not only look at the good of international players, Milicic of the Pistons is a recent painful lesson!
　This Olympic Games is a very memorable one.In particular, the Chinese team led by Yao Ming defeated the world's No. [-] Serbia and Montenegro, which is worthy of the pride of Chinese fans.

　　Most of the content in these two chapters comes from real information in history, and real matches are often more exciting than novels.This concludes the Olympic chapter, let us return to the NBA in the next chapter.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)