Chapter 392: The Final Battle, Relatively Low Key
Chen Yan walked off the floor again as the center of gravity in the building.
Against Germany, he did not need a 50 point explosion to break a team. He broke them with control.
35 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists.
A massive triple double, and all 3 numbers led the game.
Yao Ming had his best scoring night of group play with 28 points, but the spotlight still drifted toward Chen Yan. Yao did not care. He never had. If the team won, the rest was noise.
The win also mattered in a bigger way. China had locked up a spot in the knockout stage early, finishing the baseline objective the federation set before the Olympics even tipped off.
After the game, reporters crowded around Chen Yan again, hoping to pull out a soundbite that could carry tomorrow's headlines.
Chen Yan stayed calm.
Making the quarterfinals was a checkpoint, not a finish line.
A reporter leaned in. "Chen, congratulations. You have carried a heavy load in these group games. Since you've already secured advancement, will you consider resting in the next game?"
Chen Yan shook his head.
"We've advanced, but the final seeding isn't decided," he said. "Group ranking determines your path. We're fighting to the last game. And fans bought tickets to come see us play. I'm not going to let them down."
The answer hit exactly the way it was supposed to. Not loud, not dramatic, just confident in a way that made people want to believe.
Another reporter followed up. "Your last group opponent is Greece, a very strong European team. Are you confident?"
"Of course," Chen Yan said. "That's why I'm here. I believe we can beat anybody."
It was not empty talk. He had a reason for saying it out loud. After 3 straight wins, the team needed its confidence cemented, not protected.
Then the question everyone expected.
"About that dunk in the fourth quarter," the reporter said, smiling like he was about to receive a highlight reel quote. "What were you thinking?"
Chen Yan surprised him.
"It was just a normal dunk," he said. "I jumped a little higher, that's all. Don't exaggerate it."
He meant it. He remembered what happened to the guy on the other end of a famous Olympic poster years ago. The clip became a joke that followed him everywhere. Chen Yan did not want a single play to turn Kaman into a punching bag for the world.
…
China's win over Germany detonated the local media cycle.
By the next morning, the praise had already become reckless. The original goal of reaching the quarterfinals was quietly replaced with talk of medals. Some outlets even started fantasizing about an Olympic title, as if reality was obligated to follow emotion.
The players did not buy it.
They knew what Greece was.
Before the Olympics, some people had described Greece as an impossible matchup. After 4 group games, the mood flipped so hard that failing to beat Greece was suddenly treated like an embarrassment.
That was what headlines did.
Inside the locker room, the truth was simpler.
Greece was the purest form of team basketball. Their most terrifying trait was that they did not need a single star to function. They had tactics without a traditional core, discipline without ego, and a roster built to punish every defensive mistake.
For China, the equation was obvious.
If either Chen Yan or Yao Ming struggled, the game would get tight.
If both struggled, the game would slip away.
Greece did not work like that. They did not rely on one man having a great night. They relied on always making the right pass, always taking the best shot, always defending as a unit.
In the Olympic qualifying tournament, all 12 players saw the floor. Even the backup center, Andries Glyniadakis, averaged just over 4 minutes and still scored 2 points on 100 percent shooting. It spoke to how carefully the roster was chosen. Greece had a training pool of 18 players before cutting down to the final 12, and every man left standing was there for a reason.
Papaloukas was the emotional leader in the locker room, but on the court, no one was given the right to hijack the offense. That balance showed in the numbers too. 5 Greek players averaged double digit points in the qualifiers.
Spanoulis, their leading scorer at the World Championship, averaged 12.8 points per game and still only ranked 12th on the overall scoring list. Greece reached the final anyway, and they did it by beating Team USA.
That was the point.
They were not built to win through one player. They were built to win through structure.
Before the Olympics, Spanoulis had made their belief clear.
After the grind of the World Championship and the European Championship, he said their lineup was at its most mature, and their goal was the gold medal.
Their philosophy was ruthless in its simplicity.
Get the ball to the teammate with the best opportunity.
That meant defensive scouting was a headache. There was no single focus to load up against. You could not relax for a second, because any lapse would be punished by the open man.
And their frontcourt spacing made it worse. Outside of Sofoklis Schortsanitis, the so called Little Shark who stayed inside, most of their bigs could shoot from range. If you played man to man and overhelped, the paint opened. If you collapsed and rotated late, the 3 was waiting.
In some ways, Greece was even tougher than Spain.
Spain had stars and clear points of pressure.
Greece had no obvious pressure points at all.
…
August 18.
The final group game.
Wukesong was filled again, and the pressure felt different. Team USA was locked into first. The 2 through 4 spots were still unsettled, and that meant everything.
Second place and fourth place were not just numbers. They shaped your entire road in the knockout stage.
Nobody could afford to coast.
Before tipoff, Chen Yan used a [Status Improvement Card]. In a game like this, he treated preparation like medicine. You did not skip what kept you alive.
As the teams lined up, Yao Ming gave Spanoulis a quick hug near midcourt. They had been teammates briefly in Houston.
Then the ball went up, and friendship ended on contact.
Spanoulis wasted no time. Early in the game, he drilled a 3 from the top of the arc, clean and confident.
In the NBA, he had been a fringe player, a Rockets castoff.
In FIBA, he was a weapon.
Greece came out sharp, and their defense set the tone immediately. Their zone was compact, connected, and suffocating. They took away clean perimeter looks and forced China to work through tight windows.
On the sideline, Coach Yiannakis barked instructions nonstop, voice cutting through the arena sound. People called him The Tyrant for a reason. He crushed individualism without apology, molding the team into an iron unit built on defense and collective discipline.
Greece did not have a Nowitzki.
They did not need one.
They were tougher than they looked, and their chemistry was deeper than most teams could build in a single Olympic cycle.
China had talent, but their timeline was short. Chen Yan had only been with the team for a rushed month before the Olympics.
Greece had been playing together for 7 or 8 years.
That kind of stability was a weapon all its own.
The first quarter stayed tight, possession by possession, each side testing the other, each side refusing to blink.
In the early part of the second quarter, Chen Yan leaned harder into drive and kick reads, pushing the ball around the arc, trying to wake the offense up through movement. He attacked gaps, drew help, and looked for teammates in rhythm.
Greece never panicked.
They kept their pace, they kept their spacing, and their efficiency in that stretch was slightly better.
By halftime, Greece led 45 to 41.
Chen Yan had 17 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists.
On any international stage, those numbers would be loud.
For Chen Yan, they felt quiet.
Not because he was playing poorly, but because Greece had done what they always did.
They made every basket feel earned.
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