Santi Yusta will tell his grandchildren how he saved Spain from a defeat that put the current champion in danger. And basketball lovers will also tell it in their gatherings, because it was an incredible action, unthinkable when there was a tenth left to end a deplorable overtime on the part of both teams. And not because of the basket itself, a stratospheric triple, because many games have been won at the buzzer; It is something common in basketball, but because of how. The question is how that situation came to be.
Spain was about to throw the Bratislava match overboard. In a final very similar to a nonsense, Sergio Scariolo’s team, eaten up by nerves, stiffened by responsibility, was only able to score two points, in free throws, between the three and a half minutes that passed from until the end of the 40 minutes of play plus the 4.54 that elapsed in the first overtime. With the score at 66-61, five ahead for Slovakia, Yusta, almost desperate, scored a three-pointer from very far away that tightened the score (66-64) but did not suffocate the local team, because he had the ball in his power and only six seconds separated him from victory.
De Larrea had to make a foul forced by circumstances. Five seconds left. Krajcovic went to the free throw line, who scored one of the two (67-64). There were four seconds left and in desperation, almost at the buzzer, Fran Guerra launched a triple that was far away. The ball went over the baseline. There were four tenths left and Slovakia took the lead. The most logical thing would have been a pass to the other side of the field. Any touch made the clock run, but Mario Ihring, his country’s starting point guard, who had been carrying the sword of Damocles for more than 15 minutes with four fouls, made a mistake. He wanted to serve short, Yusta appeared to steal the ball, and without posture, from afar and after controlling the ball in his hands, he threw at whatever it was and scored a triple to tie.
The referees had invalidated it, because it seemed that the shot was out of time, but the images were implacable with Slovakia and generous with Spain. When the ball left Yusta’s hands, the game was still alive and Scariolo’s team had one extra life left. In the second overtime, the Slovaks did not come out with the same face as in the first and to win the game.
Everything that happened in the second half was inexplicable. Spain went into the break with enough of a lead to think that the game, with a little concentration, would go their way. He played correctly, neatly and solvently. He dominated in all records. They went to halftime, after winning the first two quarters, with 17 rebounds to Slovakia’s two, and honing in on the triple in the final ten minutes. But everything went wrong with the beginning of the second half, which Spain faced hesitantly. A 7-0 run forced Scariolo to stop the game and rethink some things. That small detail on the scoreboard convinced the locals that they could do more. With Brodziansky, the UCAM Murcia player, taking command of the operations, Spain began to doubt its possibilities.
The scoring was scarce on the part of both teams. Slovakia, despite missing many shots, managed to take the lead for the first time in the game (58-57), with four minutes remaining. Spain again, and a basket by Pradilla (58-59) once again took the lead, but when there were 3.27m left to go, the lights went out for both teams. Nobody was able to score. There were eight seconds left and Brodziansky, who finished with 23 points, could only make one of the two free throws he had to win the game. Spain, in the remaining time, did not score either. Extra time arrived, and with a tenth left, Yusta’s miracle, a happy carom.
