OS Beijing 2008 Paralympics Olympics Pekin

The basketball world champions were facing China in this group B preliminary, in a mixture of basketball schools coming with a number of NBA players, playing on both sides. China led the game, under the eyes of a huge crowd within the stadium: basketball tickets were out of order!

Putting the Spaniards, the world champions, under a spectacular amount of pressure, Yao Ming, Wang Shipeng and comrades almost made the impossible come true, making their multi-billion populace believe that they can challenge, go along, and beat the world champions; a bet that seemed too good to be true.

Spain joined its forces back together, in the last quarter, using the players’ experience to play under pressure, knowledge in the ways of turning a game into their own style, and the huge potential of 6 NBA players, to achieve a fabulous comeback into the game, as Marc Gasol balanced the scores to 72 each, in the final 19 seconds.

The over time played in favor of the Spanish formula, and was totally controlled by the bi-Gasol combination, as Yao was fouled out at the end of the last quarter, giving Pau Gasol (29 points), all the freedom to score 9 points in the overtime.

China accepted their defeat, being a source of experience and motivation for them, as some Spanish accredited that they weren’t taking the game very seriously, and that luck was on their side.