If fans and sports journalists needed a miracle to defend the canonization of the hands of Oscar Schmidt, they can use as an argument what happened on August 23, 1987, in front of around 16 thousand people, in Indiana, in the United States.
Against all odds, the basketball player nicknamed Mão Santa led the Brazilian team to a feat more remembered than the two-time world championship in 1959 and 1963.
Inventors of this sport and undefeated at home, the hosts were hegemonic and favorites for another title. However, Brazil managed an unlikely comeback in the final of the men’s Pan American Games tournament, in Indianapolis, a symbolic city for US basketball.
Oscar, who died on Friday (17), aged 68, with a cardiorespiratory arrest, in Santana de Parnaíba (SP), always denied the sanctity of his hands.
He credited his aim to exhaustive repetition in training. He didn’t want to be an example through talent, but rather through dedication, which he defended as possible for anyone.
His career spanning almost three decades has accumulated impressive numbers. He receives the second highest rating by a basketball player, 49,737 points. After being surpassed by American star LeBron James, in 2024, Oscar celebrated the new record as a contribution by athletes to the evolution of the sport.
In his five Olympic appearances, from 1980 to 1996, the Brazilian winger collected marks such as the highest score in the history of the Games, with 1,093 points. He is also the highest scorer for the yellow-green team, with 7,693 points.
Interclub world champion with the São Paulo club Sírio, in 1979, he went to shine in Europe. He shone in 11 seasons in Italy and two in Spain.
In 1984, Oscar declined an invitation from the New Jersey Nets, from New York, to play in basketball’s biggest showcase, the US professional league, the NBA. If he accepted, he would no longer be able to play for the Brazilian team in the main competitions.
Even so, the native of Natal was still revered by American tributes. In part, because of the impact he made in that miraculous Pan Pan triumph in Indianapolis.
Candidates for NBA
Even though prohibited by Olympic rules from fielding professional athletes, the USA largely dominated men’s basketball at the Games. They just hadn’t won the title in 1972, in Munich, against the arch-rival Soviet Union.
They were represented by young people from strong university championships. Many of them, about to enter the NBA. Like none other than Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing in 1984.
At the 1987 Pan American Games, it was no different. All 12 draftees then played in the NBA, albeit briefly.
A future member of the 1992 Dream Team, center David Robinson, from the US Naval Academy, would win the title in 1999 and 2003 with the San Antonio Spurs. Rex Chapman and Danny Manning would also stand out in the league.
Multi-award winning coach Denny Crum, from the University of Louisville, had won gold at the 1977 Universiade in Bulgaria.
In Indianapolis, his team was flying. They beat Panama, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela and Uruguay with an average difference of 29 points. In the semifinal, just 80 to 75 against Puerto Rico.
Brazil beat Uruguay 111 to 79, Puerto Rico 100 to 99 and the Virgin Islands 103 to 98. They lost to Canada 91 to 88 and came in third place in Group B, behind the Canadians and Puerto Ricans.
In the quarterfinals, they beat Venezuela 131 to 84. In the semifinals, they defeated Mexico 137 to 116.
Fear of humiliation
An unusual break until the final against the USA added to the anxiety. “We started to feel bad every day, imagining that the worst would happen. I thought like this: let’s enjoy it, we’ve already won the silver medal, which was our goal”, reports Ricardo Cardoso Guimarães, the former Cadum point guard, aged 66.
As he had not been called up since the 1984 Olympics, he did not participate in the confrontation between Brazilians and Americans in the semifinals of the World Championship, in Spain, the previous year. But it was a rare novelty on coach Ary Vidal’s list for the Pan.
In turn, only Robinson remained on the American team. His memory was of a calm 96-80 victory against Brazil, on July 17, 1986, in Madrid.
He and the others led by coach Lute Olson were champions after beating the Soviets 87 to 85 in the decision. The Brazilians lost the bronze medal to Drazen Petrovic’s Yugoslavia 117-91.
Oscar himself would later recognize the fear of a crushing defeat in the match that would end the Pan’s sporting program and, therefore, attract great attention.
Another leader of that team, former winger Marcel, was also distressed. “The truth is that I was scared to death of us taking a beating from them, a 50-point defeat. Everyone had that feeling”, he confessed, in a statement published by the National Basketball League (LNB) in 2012.
“We only believed we could win when the game ended. We were really afraid of being embarrassed on national television”, admits Cadum, who was at the 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1992 Olympics.
The first minutes of the final confirmed the predictions. With many mistakes and a quick 6-0 deficit, Brazil appeared stunned. “It started with a walk for the guys, 14 to 2,” recalls Cadum.
The details are seared into your memory. “There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t remember that game, the moments that preceded it, the post-game, the preparation, the suffering to achieve the impossible. It’s so vivid, that it seems like it happened last week, and already [quase] 40 years”, says the former athlete.
The first half ended with a score of 68 to 54. The visitors’ loss was only greater because, in the last second, Marcel managed a three-point basket, almost from half the court.
At the beginning of the second half, the Americans seemed more comfortable, managing the advantage. However, the scenario was changing. Brazil reacted with more intensity, trying to intimidate their opponents emotionally. Oscar baskets provided enthusiasm.
“To this day, we can’t answer what was the trigger that caused the team to turn around”, says Cadum.
The American team destabilized. He didn’t maintain the tight marking that made it difficult for the two main Brazilian shooters: Oscar and Marcel.
At 29 years old, the number 14 started to justify the unwanted nickname of Mão Santa. Vibrating a lot with each play, a typical characteristic of his, he inflamed the Brazilians on the court and off it.
Cadum says that the pressure went to the opposing side. “They were younger and felt it. We held their team back. Even with the provocation, challenging the guys to play, and they couldn’t play. They felt the blow, and we grew. It infected the bench, the Brazilian fans. That electricity”, he analyzes.
Women’s team in the stands
In the preliminary match, Paula and Hortência’s team had lost the women’s final to the USA by 111 to 87. So, the runners-up were in the audience to reinforce the support for their compatriots at the Market Square Arena, which would be demolished in 2001.
In the second half, Oscar, with 35, and Marcel, with 20, contributed to Brazil’s 66 points. His three-point shooting was key. This innovation in scoring had occurred in 1984, and American college students were not accustomed to the distance from the demarcation line.
In the final minutes, with more experience, the Brazilians controlled the surprising gap on the scoreboard, which ended at 120 to 115. In total, Oscar scored 46 points and finished as Pan’s top scorer with 249.
It was the first defeat for the American men’s basketball team in their country. As the organizers of the event were not considering anything less than the gold medal, they had not provided the Brazilian national anthem for the awards ceremony, which was delayed.
“It was a certain victory for the USA. They had to look for the anthem in a relatively nearby football stadium”, explains Cadum.
The celebrations and crying are still remembered. Brazilian ecstasy contrasted with the Americans’ astonishment. In common, there was everyone’s disbelief.
Achieve the impossible
The lack of great sporting achievements in Brazil at that time helped highlight the feat in Indianapolis.
Coach Ary Vidal and the players were marked by success. “Yes, it immortalized us. It will forever be remembered”, says Cadum, whose colleagues were Oscar, Marcel, Guerrinha, Israel, Gerson, Rolando, Paulinho Villas Boas, Maury, Sílvio, André and Pipoka.
He believes that the greatest legacy of that title was overcoming an obstacle that seemed insurmountable. “Bringing this into our lives, of always wanting more, of not being content with little. We carry this to this day”, he says.
It is a conclusion shared by that generation. “We beat the invincible. After that day, I started to believe that I can do anything in life. I can no longer say that you can’t do something because you can,” Marcel said on the LNB website on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of that final.
On the 36th anniversary of the achievement, in 2023, Oscar wrote on his social media profiles: “The day our team forgot the existence of the word impossible and only remembered the word courage.” He repeated that that game changed his life.
“It changed world basketball,” claims Cadum. Not only because, combined with the disappointment with the USA’s bronze medal at the following year’s Olympics, that unprecedented defeat made the Americans pressure managers to allow NBA athletes, which would finally happen at the 1992 Games.
Several basketball figures believe that that final proved the new dynamics of the game with the advent of the three-point shooting rule.
“It opened the court. Defenses could no longer stay in the box, they had to come out. This led to more individual play, one against one. And today we see in the NBA that the one against one game is what predominates because you have to score the three-point shot”, declared Marcel to Globo Esporte in 2017.
This text was originally published here.
