What an incredible finish and what a way to end EuroBasket 2007! J.R. Holden won it for Russia with 2.3 seconds to go, in which was just his team's second lead in the entire game. His game-winning shot touched the rim, went up and fell down. Spain had the final possession and Pau Gasol's potential game-winning shot went in and out. The way that Holden silenced thousands of fans and how he quietly left the court when Spain called timeout, like trying to make as less noise as possible, is undeniably the biggest image of the EuroBasket, the one that will stay forever in everyone's minds. Holden, a man who was about to quit basketball when he finished his college career, started his professional career in Latvia, then moved to Oostende and soon climbed to AEK Athens to win the Greek League title in 2002, his team's first in 35 years. That's when he joined CSKA, first as a foreign player before he got a Russian passport to play with its national team. In other words, Holden had to go through a lot before this moment. Now he is a Euroleague champion with CSKA in 2006 and a European champion with the Russian national team. Who would have figured that out when he was finishing college at Bucknell? His jumper may well change his life, and now he will represent Russia at the 2008 Olympics.

And now for some milestones. Well, here is what I came up with, considering I have worked non-stop since the start of the competition but also that I do stuff like that for the Final Four media all the time. Russia won its first EuroBasket title. The Soviet Union had won 14 Eurobasket gold medals in the past, but this is Russia's first as an independent country. The last - and first, before tonight - time that Russia made it to the final was in 1993. That year, a dunk-and-foul by Chris Welp, helped by a young Mikhail Mikhailov who made an unthinkable foul in the final seconds with Russia leading by 2 and Welp about to dunk, Germany was the last team to win the... more