The Best Game You Never Saw

They are tucked away in a corner of the Olympics, two groups of
sad-eyed men laboring in a tiny gymnasium on a steamy Southern night.

In another part of town the basketball celebrities from the U.S. are
preparing for their first performance in a huge arena filled with
adoring fans and television cameras, but there is no such grandeur
here for the teams from Lithuania and Croatia, which is what they
expect. They have come here with no illusions. Even on this first
night of competition, they know a gold medal is not in their future,
and they do not hesitate to admit as much. They are not the wide-eyed
dreamers who populate other Olympic teams and believe anything is
possible. In their countries that kind of innocence dies young.


The game begins, and there is Toni Kukoc, Croatia's star forward,
playing despite a broken left thumb that was expected to keep him on
the sidelines. The lefthanded Kukoc shoots and passes brilliantly,
scoring 33 points while grimacing in pain so often that it begins to
seem like his natural _expression. A few nights later a U.S. gymnast
will complete a vault with torn ligaments in her ankle and become a
national hero, but there will be no odes to Kukoc's courage in the
newspapers tomorrow. For Lithuania, center Arvydas Sabonis thunders up
and down the court, not letting his surgically scarred knees slow him.
The teams play with pride and passion, neither squad able to break
away from the other, and the mostly American spectators begin to put
down their hot dogs and nachos and appreciate the small jewel of a
game taking shape.


The buzzer sounds with the score tied 66-66, and the game heads into
overtime, then into a second extra period. Lithuanian star Sarunas
Marciulionis fouled out near the end of regulation, and when Sabonis
follows him to the bench because of fouls in the second overtime, all
seems lost for Lithuania. Croatia leads by three points in the waning

moments, but Lithuanian guard Rimas Kurtinaitis responds with a
four-point play when he is fouled while making a three-point shot, and
Lithuania has a one-point lead. By now the small crowd is on its feet
as the exhausted players try to summon the energy for one final push.
Kukoc makes three free throws to regain a two-point advantage for
Croatia. But it is Kurtinaitis again, drilling another three-pointer
to put the Lithuanians back on top by one. This time Croatia has no
answer, and Lithuania wins 83-81.


The Lithuanian players hug one another in wild celebration while the
Croatians linger on the court, seemingly in a daze. Kukoc falls to his
knees in disappointment and fatigue while the fans applaud the
magnificence of what they have just seen. There is no NBC reporter to
interview the victors, there will be no banner headlines in American
papers tomorrow. The game will remain in the shadows, its story
passing mostly by word of mouth. "I hear that was a great game the
other night," someone says to Marciulionis a few days later. "You did
not see it?" Marciulionis replies. "Ah, my friend, if you had only
seen it."