Spain overcomes odds, injury to win World Championship

"He's the best player in this tournament. I wanted to win this for him," Jose Calderon, who plays for the Toronto Raptors, said as he held up his gold medal. "We are a team. We had Pau in our minds. I think it was a special day."

Felipe Reyes started in Gasol's place and he had 10 points in the first half, one less than he had in the whole tournament -- he was limited to three games because of back problems.

Gasol's younger brother, Marc, gave Spain big minutes early in the middle. He had three rebounds in the game's first 17 minutes. He averaged 1.9 coming into Sunday's game.

"I was happily surprised by the way my brother grabbed the opportunity he got," Pau Gasol said. "I was very happy for him because he was a big part of the gold medal."

Everything went Spain's way as it took a 43-23 halftime lead. Its other stars were playing at their normal level and the bench was playing well above its head.

Meanwhile, Greece looked nothing like the team that had received plaudits from around the world for the way it convincingly beat the United States.

There was no big push from Greece in the third quarter. Gasol's teammates wouldn't allow it.

The lead was 54-34 with 10 minutes to go. It got only bigger.

"It was surprising, yes, because the Spanish team was everything around Gasol," Greece forward Konstas Tsartsaris said. "But we see today that the Spanish team is 12 players and not only one. They played excellent defensively and on offense also. They gave a great defensive effort."

Gasol came out of the players' tunnel before the game on crutches, wearing his red warmup top and jeans. As he sat on the bench while the teams were warming up, Greece forward Sofoklis Schortsanitis and coach Panagiotis Yannakis came over for visits.

He was up and hopping on one foot for each huddle. Players hugged him or slapped hands with him at each timeout. They were winning this game for him.

Jorge Garbajosa, who signed with the Raptors this summer, and Juan Carlos Navarro each had 20 points for Spain, which was fourth in 1982. Reyes finished with those 10 points and Marc Gasol grabbed four more rebounds, but their play off the bench was much more than numbers.

"To lose your franchise player, even more a great friend like Pau, was a very hard blow," Garbajosa said. "We talked yesterday that if normally we give 100 percent we had to give 150 percent because of Pau's absence."

Mihalis Kakiouzis had 17 points for Greece, which finished fourth in 1994 and 1998.

This was Europe's third straight world title -- Yugoslavia won in 1998 and 2002 -- and it will have the home continent advantage in 2010 with the tournament in Turkey.